Planet Nine 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. This undiscovered super-Earth-sized planet would have an
Planet Nine the disk had a distant inner edge, 100–200 AU, a planet encountering Neptune would have a 20% chance of being captured in an orbit similar to that proposed for Planet Nine. The observed clustering is more likely if the inner edge is at 200 AU. Unlike the gas nebula the planetesimal disk is likely to be long lived, potentially allowing a later capture. Planet Nine could have been captured from beyond the Solar System during a close encounter between the Sun and another star in its birth cluster. Three-body interactions during these encounters can perturb the path of planets on