Mysterious Planet 9 and the Interstellar Messenger Hypothesis

Over the past twenty years we have made important advances in the study of the outer solar system. We are talking about the so-called trans-Neptunian space, the eternal night beyond the realm of the giant planets. And in this study, we encountered a surprising population of inhabitants, the so-called extreme trans-Neptunians, whose idiosyncratic characteristics have sparked heated debate in the scientific community. Among them are hypothetical planet 9.

Some researchers see in this population the manifestation of an invisible presence, a new planet not yet discovered in the dark and cold reaches of our solar system. Others, however, think that such a planet does not exist and that these extreme trans-Neptunian features are due to imperfections in our limited observations, so-called observational errors.

Possible vast and distant world

This hypothetical planet, although confirmed or ruled out, is tentatively known as Planet 9. Remember that there were only eight left in the solar system in 2006 when Pluto was dropped from that category.

Planet 9 will not be as small as Pluto or many of the other trans-Neptunians discovered in recent years. Detailed modeling of the characteristics of the body that should cause the observed effects was carried out, and it was concluded that it must be a very large planet, with a mass of 4-8 times the mass of the Earth. In addition, it will be very far from the Sun: about ten times the distance to Pluto. Probably even more.

If it existed, it would be a planet of a new type, different from other planets known to us in the solar system. Our planetary neighbors are basically divided into two types. These are either small rocky worlds with a solid surface (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars), or gas giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune).

Planet 9 would fall somewhere in between those categories. This could be what is known as a super-Earth. a rocky planet larger than ours, or sub-Neptune, a gaseous world less massive and slightly smaller than Neptune.

We have found such planets in other stars, but being so far away, we know very little about them. The discovery of one in our solar system would open the door to a detailed study of a category of planets that are almost unknown today.

Long way asteroid CNEOS14

How could we discover it? planet 9? Not easy. Being so far away, its brightness would be extremely dim, and we would need powerful telescopes. The problem is that these telescopes usually have a very small field of view. It’s like using a microscope to examine a very large surface, something small that we’ve dropped. Significant surveillance efforts have been made in recent years to try and discover this elusive world, but so far without success.

A few months ago, a scientific article was published by two researchers from Harvard, which stated that the meteorite (CNEOS14), which fell in the Pacific Ocean in 2014, is not an object of our solar system. This will be the first interstellar object we have detected. A small asteroid about one meter in diameter that collided with our planet while traveling through the solar system at a speed of 60 kilometers per second.

It was this high speed that led the researchers to the conclusion that it was an alien from other stars. To do this, they first needed to rule out that the object was accelerated or deflected by the gravity of a planet in the solar system. This is easy to verify by reconstructing its trajectory and seeing that it did not pass close to any of the known planets.

What if CNEOS14 interacted with a yet unknown planet during its journey through the solar system? This was the question we asked ourselves and opened up a new direction of work.

amazing coincidence

The first hint that there might be a connection between the CNEOS14 meteorite and Planet 9 came when we plotted the orbit that Planet 9 should have taken according to the most detailed simulations on the sky and overlaid the origin of CNEOS14. We found an amazing match. Between the place of origin of the meteorite and the region where the simulations predict that Planet 9 is most likely to be found. The probability that such a coincidence is the result of chance is on the order of 1%.

Following this theme, we ran simulations to reconstruct the trajectory of CNEOS14 and found three other statistical anomalies that would be extremely unlikely for an object coming directly from the interstellar medium. Combining the probabilities of these anomalies, we get that either there is something we don’t understand about objects in the interstellar medium. Or there is a 99.9% chance that CNEOS14 has stumbled upon an unknown planet in the outer solar system. And this new world will be located right in the area predicted by the simulations.

These coincidences and statistical anomalies have led us to formulate the “messenger hypothesis”, referring to the use of the term delivery courier in astrophysics to refer to particles that bring us information from celestial bodies such as neutrinos, cosmic rays or gravitational waves. According to this hypothesis, CNEOS14 must have been deflected towards us by an unknown massive object in the outer solar system. Possibly Planet 9, 30 to 60 years ago.

If the hunch is correct, tracking CNEOS14’s trajectory backwards in time will give us the location of Planet 9. According to our calculations, it will currently be very close to the point where the constellations of Aries, Taurus and Cetus meet. We are conducting an observational campaign at the Javalambre Observatory (Teruel) to conduct this search. This is a difficult task that will take time and work because the scan field is still large and the object we are looking for is very weak. But now it’s clear.

Of course, today our hypothesis is nothing more than an assumption, like the very existence of Planet 9. However, it is a well-founded assumption that meets three requirements that should be taken seriously in science. a) physically plausible; b) is well motivated; c) is empirically verifiable.

CNEOS14 may be pointing us to the position of Planet 9. Or perhaps it is a great cosmic coincidence. In any case, this is a beautiful story that can be said that If it’s not true, then it’s ben trovato (if not true, then well searched), an expression that, by the way, is attributed to the astronomer, the Renaissance monk Giordano Bruno.