Astronomers have found further evidence of the existence of the mysterious Planet X in the solar system

 Astronomers have been speculating for years about the existence of a mysterious Planet X orbiting somewhere on the outskirts of our solar system. Now scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) say they have the strongest statistical evidence yet for its existence.

Researchers, including Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown, known, among others, from Pluto's reclassification as a dwarf planet, analyzed the motions of unstable trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) and came to surprising conclusions. In their opinion, there must be a huge, previously unknown object that exerts an influence on these distant celestial bodies with its mass and gravity.

This could be the real discovery of the decade in the field of astronomy. If the Planet X hypothesis is confirmed, it will be a breakthrough event that will shed new light on our understanding of the Solar System.

The idea of ​​the existence of an unknown, ninth planet orbiting somewhere beyond the orbit of Neptune, also called Planet X, appeared already in the 1930s. At that time, astronomers tried to explain the irregularities in the movements of Uranus and Neptune, which suggested the presence of another massive object.

Although Pluto, discovered in 1930, was initially considered to be the hypothetical Planet X, it quickly turned out to be too small to be its counterpart. In 2016, Batygin and Brown presented the first serious evidence for the existence of an even larger, ninth planet.

Their model suggested that the object could have a mass about 10 times that of Earth and orbit at a distance about 20 times greater than Neptune's distance from the Sun. Since then, scientists around the world have been frantically searching for this mysterious planet.

In the latest study, Batygin and Brown re-analyzed the motions of trans-Neptunian objects - celestial bodies orbiting beyond Neptune. It turned out that their trajectories were strongly interconnected, suggesting that they must be under the influence of some powerful gravitational force.

"We performed painstaking simulations, taking into account the influence of all the large planets, galactic flow and even passing stars. The results are consistent with the model assuming the existence of Planet X," explains Brown.

Experts say that this unknown object would have to be extremely massive to have such a significant impact on TNO's movements. They assume that it may be up to 10 times more massive than Earth and similar in size to Uranus or Neptune.

Despite this compelling evidence, scientists still don't know where exactly to look for Planet X. Its hypothetical orbit would be about 20 times farther from the Sun than Neptune's, making it much more difficult to observe.