A photo from open sources
If American astronomers Konstantin Batygin and Michael Brown found the ninth planet in our solar system, which at ten times more massive than the Earth and is a thousand astronomical units from the sun, then the astronomers of France and Switzerland the other day came up with a theory that explains how this exoplanet appeared in the sphere of influence of our luminary.
Ninth planet captured by the sun
In their opinion, our sun captured this exoplanet from another stars in the cluster of their birth. True, for this, our luminary it was necessary to “fulfill” certain conditions. First, start this capture at a time when the sun was grouped with thousands of itself similar stars, between which moved with fairly low planet speeds.
Secondly, such a capture could only occur at a distance of a hundred fifty astronomical units so as not to cause disturbance in Kuiper belt. Thirdly, the exoplanet itself should at this time revolve around another star at a distance of at least a hundred astronomical units. And finally, the sun, after capture, should have the ability to reproduce the dynamic configuration of their the system we are observing today.
Since the phase of the cluster, scientists say, can last a hundred and more than millions of years, this is enough for distribution between the most massive stars, which is the sun, the most distant planets, like Neptune.
A group of French and Swiss astronomers using modeling as part of the task, I came to the conclusion that The sun could easily fulfill all these conditions and capture the ninth planet, placing it in a modern heliocentric orbit. The preprint on this study, scientists have already marked on arXiv.org portal. It will also be published in one of the scientific publications covering astronomy.
Sun Solar System Exoplanets
