Vulcan (hypothetical planet) Vulcan (hypothetical planet) Vulcan is a small hypothetical planet that was proposed to exist in an orbit between Mercury and the Sun. Attempting to explain peculiarities of Mercury's orbit, the 19th-century French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier hypothesized that they were the result of another planet, which he named "Vulcan". A number of reputable investigators became involved in the search for Vulcan, and despite occasional claimed observations, no such planet was ever confirmed. Peculiarities in Mercury's orbit have now been explained by Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. Searches of data gathered by NASA's two "STEREO" spacecraft have failed to find
Planet Nine and proposed a possible orbit for the planet. This hypothesis could also explain TNOs with orbits perpendicular to the inner planets and others with extreme inclinations, as well as the tilt of the Sun's axis. Planet Nine is hypothesized to follow a highly elliptical orbit around the Sun with a period lasting 10,000–20,000 years. The planet's semi-major axis is estimated to be , roughly 20 times the distance from Neptune to the Sun, and its inclination to the ecliptic, the plane of the Solar System, to be about . The high eccentricity of Planet Nine's orbit could bring it as