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The “Planet Nine” has been sought many times, but without success. In a new paper, a team proposes that gravity is wrong.
Astronomers have been puzzled by a Kuiper Belt clustering for decades. Astrophysicists believe small objects are being “shepherded” by a large unknown planet far beyond Neptune’s orbit.
Theoretical physicists behind the new paper are interested in MODD. Galaxy rotation is odd, as is their right. The rotation of galaxies is best explained by dark matter, which is estimated to outweigh matter five to one. Galaxies rotate oddly in MOND because objects with low acceleration, like those at the edge of galaxies, experience gravity changes. Small gravitational acceleration changes gravitational behavior.
Most physicists prefer dark matter because it allows scientists to predict the universe and its objects, which MOND cannot.
The new study looked for MOND evidence in the Solar System, specifically the Milky Way’s influence on Kuiper Belt objects.
“We wanted to see if the data that support the Planet Nine hypothesis would effectively rule out MOND,” Hamilton College associate professor of physics Katherine Brown said in a press release.
If MOND is correct, outer solar system objects would align with the Milky Way’s gravitational field over millions of years, the team says. Due to the small sample size, they want to study more objects, but plotting Kuiper Belt objects (KBO) against the Milky Way’s gravitational field showed a “striking” alignment.
The team writes that the big claim needs more proof. Since Newtonian gravity doesn’t change, finding Planet Nine is easier. Dark matter has advantages, and there are other explanations for how these objects move in the Kuiper Belt. It may even be statistical anomaly and selection bias.
Kevin Napier of the University of Michigan studied objects beyond Neptune. If the six objects are bunching caused by a hidden planet, their orbits differ from those of nearby objects. The team found no evidence for this and suggested selection bias for Planet Nine.
“Historically, claimed gravitational anomalies in the solar system have almost invariably proven to be spurious under closer examination,” the team wrote in their paper. “They also discovered Neptune and established general relativity. The Kuiper Belt anomalies may indicate Planet Nine, a modification of Newtonian gravity, or a spurious signal.
The paper appears in Astronomical Journal.
