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No sign of Planet Nine? Trail runs cold for hypothetical world

Analysis of three astronomical surveys provides some of the best evidence yet against the existence of a giant planet at the fringes of the Solar System.
  1. Jonathan O'Callaghan
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Planet Nine is dead; long live Planet Nine? For some years, scientists have debated the existence of an unseen planet at least five times the mass of Earth in the outer reaches of the Solar System. Now, the hypothesis has been dealt a blow by a new analysis of distant, icy objects, which questions the evidence that they are under the gravitational pull of a huge planet.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00456-7

References

  1. Batygin, K. & Brown, M. E. Astron. J. 151, 22 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Napier, K. J. et al. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/2102.05601 (2021).

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