Planet Nine estimated mass of ten Earths, a diameter two to four times that of Earth, and an elongated orbit lasting 10,000 - 20,000 years. Batygin and Brown suggest that Planet Nine could be the core of a primordial giant planet that was ejected from its original orbit by Jupiter during the genesis of the Solar System. Others have proposed that the planet was captured from another star, is a captured rogue planet, or that it formed on a distant orbit and was pulled into an eccentric orbit by a passing star. As of 2018, efforts have failed to directly observe Planet
Stability of the Solar System Stability of the Solar System The stability of the Solar System is a subject of much inquiry in astronomy. Though the planets have been stable when historically observed, and will be in the short term, their weak gravitational effects on one another can add up in unpredictable ways. For this reason (among others) the Solar System is chaotic, and even the most precise long-term models for the orbital motion of the Solar System are not valid over more than a few tens of millions of years. The Solar System is stable in human terms, and far beyond, given that it