The elusive “Planet Nine,” which may or may not lurk in the outer reaches of the solar system, could be surrounded by a small swarm of potential moons, a new study reveals. What’s more, these moons could be the key to finding the missing planet.
Planet Nine, if it exists, lurks beyond the orbit of Neptune in an icy region known as the Kuiper Belt.
Scientists first proposed the existence of Planet Nine in a 2016 study in The Astronomical Journal. They used the hypothetical planet as a possible explanation for the unusual orbits of several extreme trans-Neptunian objects (ETNOs) — asteroids, comets, moons or dwarf planets that are beyond 30 astronomical units from the sun. (One astronomical unit is the distance between Earth and the sun.)
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