turned into Planet nine as soon as an exoplanet, stolen by using our sun?

An extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, is by means of definition a planet placed outside our sun gadget. Now it appears that this definition is now not possible. consistent with astronomers in Lund, there is lots to indicate that Planet nine become captured by means of the young solar and has been part of our solar machine absolutely undetected ever considering.

"it's miles nearly ironic that whilst astronomers frequently discover exoplanets masses of mild years away in other sun structures, there may be probably one hiding in our personal backyard," says Alexander Mustill, astronomer at Lund university.

Stars are born in clusters and regularly bypass by way of one another. it is during those encounters that a celebrity can "steal" one or extra planets in orbit round another megastar. This might be what befell while our very own sun captured Planet nine.

In a laptop-simulated version, Alexander collectively with astronomers in Lund and Bordeaux has shown that Planet 9 was probably captured by way of the solar when coming in near touch even as orbiting any other big name.

"Planet 9 might also very well have been 'shoved' through different planets, and while it ended up in an orbit that changed into too extensive round its very own celebrity, our solar may have taken the opportunity to scouse borrow and capture Planet nine from its original celebrity. when the sun later departed from the stellar cluster in which it became born, Planet nine changed into stuck in an orbit across the solar," says Alexander Mustill.

"there's nevertheless no image of Planet nine, no longer even a factor of light. We do not know if it's miles made from rock, ice, or gasoline. All we understand is that its mass is probably round ten times the mass of earth."

It requires lots more research earlier than it can be ascertained that Planet 9 is the first exoplanet in our solar gadget. If the principle is correct, Alexander Mustill believes that the have a look at of area and the know-how of the sun and the Earth will take a giant soar forward.

"this is the only exoplanet that we, realistically, could be capable of reach the use of a space probe," he says.