Overview

• Rice University models indicate up to a 40% chance that a Neptune-sized Planet Nine was trapped into a distant orbit after early solar system instabilities
• The Vera Rubin Observatory, set to begin operations this year in Chile, could confirm or rule out the planet’s existence with its deep-wide field survey
• Researchers led by Sihao Cheng have identified dwarf planet candidate 2017 OF201, which follows an orbit extending beyond 1,600 AU into the Oort cloud
• 2017 OF201’s elongated, unclustered trajectory challenges the orbital alignment used to infer Planet Nine and may weaken the primary evidence for its presence
• Simulations show most planets scattered during a system’s chaotic formation escape to become rogue worlds, highlighting complex dynamics in planetary evolution