Planet Nine from Outer Space: A Status Update Konstantin Batygin ( Caltech)
Over the course of the past two decades, observational surveys have unveiled the intricate orbital structure of the Kuiper Belt, a field of icy bodies orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune. In addition to a host of readilypredictable orbital behavior, the emerging census of transNeptunianobjects appears to display dynamical phenomena that cannot be explained by interactions with the known eightplanet Solar System alone. Specifically, the observed physical clustering of orbits with semimajor axes in excess of 250 AU, the detachment of perihelia of select Kuiper belt objects from Neptune, as well as the dynamical origin of highly inclined, retrograde longperiod orbits remain elusive within the context of the classical view of the Solar System. This newly outlined dynamical architecture of the distant solar system points to the existence of a planet with mass M9 5M on a moderately inclined orbit with a semimajor axis a9 400800 AU and eccentricity e9 In t
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