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 X, Planet Next, or Giant Planet Five." Planet Nine Planet Nine is a hypothetical planet in the outer region of the Solar System. Its gravity could explain the unlikely clustering of orbits for a group of extreme trans-Neptunian objects (eTNOs) that orbit beyond Neptune with average distances greater than 250 AU. These eTNOs tend to have their points of closest approach to the Sun clustered in one direction, and many of their orbits have a similar tilt. This evidence suggests that the gravity from a large undiscovered object is influencing the orbits of the most distant known Solar System objects.