The mysterious 'Planet Nine' is responsible for the tilt in the solar system, suggests recent studies.
A new study says that the tilt of the solar system, barring the sun, may have been caused by the influence of Planet Nine, reports Space.com. This fresh study was presented at the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences and European Planetary Science Congress in Pasadena.
According to Elizabeth Bailey, lead author of the study, Planet Nine may have tilted the eight planets over the lifetime of the solar system. Bailey, along with her colleagues Michael Brown and Konstantin Batygin, ran computer simulations and they found put that the tilt of the eight planets could be explained by the gravitational influence of Planet Nine.
Notably, prior work had found that the zone in which the eight planets orbit the sun is tilted by about 6 degrees and it remained a mystery for long. In January this year, astronomers revealed evidence for the possible existence of another planet in the solar system and they suggested that its mass could be about 10 times the mass of the earth and it could be orbiting the sun at a distance of about 500 times the distance from the earth to the sun.
Meanwhile, in an interview with Astronomy Magazine Batygin shed more light on the matter and said that Planet Nine possesses a huge orbit. This enables it to assert a bit of torque on the inner planets without having to apply much force. Talking about other theories regarding the tilt, he said that he had also theorized something in 2012 and according to his past theory, the tilt was caused by a companion star which was bound to the sun.
When asked if the recent findings have helped in a better understanding of solar system formation, he replied in affirmative. However, he did not have the same reply with relation to Planet Nine. Batygin said that the new data does not provide too much new information about the mysterious planet but it does give them confidence that they are making efforts in the right direction.
