Will Planet 9 Destroy Our Dear Solar System?

Planet 9 is touted to be the villain of the solar system. When the sun dies---and it will---that star is expected to swallow the earth and nearby planets and take on a new avatar as a white dwarf. But if you are still around in space 7 billion years later, you may be safer if you live on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus or Neptune, as they are expected to be pushed to outer space and remain secure.

However, a new study shows that the rogue Planet 9 will destroy them all. At first, a scientist from the University of Louisiana said that Planet 9 would set off comet showers and bomb the earth, snuffing out life on earth. But another study by Dimitri Veras at the University of Warwick explained that the planet is going to destroy the entire solar system. It may not be pushed out like the safe planets, but might implode.

Hence, the mass of the planet and orbital properties of Planet 9 might force the larger planets into a "collision course" with the sun. Or the planet may even throw out its schoolmates from its gravitational grasp.

The existence of the Planet 9 is a bit controversial. Some people think that it is a figment of the imagination. But another professional, Scott Sheppard, a lead author of a new study from the Carnegie Institution for Science, is sure that it exists.

Still, Veras and Sheppard agree that it is not confirmed, yet the strange movement of objects in the solar system's remote corners tends to make the experts sure of certain theories.

"The existence of a distant massive planet could fundamentally change the fate of the solar system," Dr Veras said. "Uranus and Neptune, in particular, may no longer be safe from the death throes of the Sun. The fate of the solar system would depend on the mass and orbital properties of Planet Nine, if it exists."

"The future of the Sun may be foreshadowed by white dwarfs that are 'polluted' by rocky debris. Planet Nine could act as a catalyst for the pollution. The Sun's future identity as a white dwarf that could be ' polluted' by rocky debris may reflect current observations of other white dwarfs throughout the Milky Way," he said.

The study was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.