Astronomer Michael Rowan-Robinson of Imperial College London in England conducted an analysis of data collected by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) in 1983, and found a trio of point sources that could be Planet Nine.
“Given the poor quality of IRAS detection, at survey boundaries, and in parts of the sky where far infrared detection is very difficult, the chances of the candidate being real are not very great,” he was quoted as saying. Science Alert, Wednesday (17/11/2021).
READ: NASA Finds The Door To Another World
Speculation about the existence of hidden planets in the outer reaches of the Solar System has been swirling for decades, but reached a new peak in 2016 with the publication of a paper proposing new evidence.
Astronomer Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin of Caltech discovered that small objects in the outer Kuiper Belt orbit strangely, as if pushed into patterns under the gravitational influence of something large.
The mysterious object could be five to 10 times the mass of Earth, orbiting at a distance of between 400 and 800 astronomical units. This object is very far away, and is quite small and cold and may not reflect much sunlight at all.
IRAS operated for 10 months from January 1983, conducting far-infrared surveys of 96 percent of the sky. In these wavelengths, small, cool objects like Planet Nine might be detectable, so Rowan-Robinson decided to reanalyze the data using parameters consistent with Planet Nine.
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