text: ESO/Tom Ruen/nagualdesign 
   
   Scientists are searching for an unseen planet hiding somewhere in our solar system, but not one set to seemingly appear from nowhere to collide or nearly collide with Earth, ushering in an age of apocalypse. 
   
   Over the past several weeks, you may have come across one of those wacky predictions that a planet called "Nibiru" or "Planet X" is lurking "behind the sun" or somewhere else out of view in our solar system but threatening an imminent existential catastrophe nonetheless. 
   
   As with much of the fake news and online rumor-mongering that now spreads far and wide in a flash over social media, there is a grain of truth to the story that is then twisted, exaggerated, taken out of context or conflated with others. 
   
   The kernel of reality in the 2017 version of the Nibiru cataclysm prophecy, which represents at least the third time the planet has failed to show itself as predicted, is that astronomers increasingly see evidence of an invisible ninth planet in our solar system. 
   
   "There are now five different lines of observational evidence pointing to the existence of Planet Nine," CalTech planetary astrophysicist Konstantin Batygin, said Wednesday in a release. 
   
   Batygin and his mentor-turned-colleague, Caltech professor Mike Brown, originally hoped to debunk the idea of a hidden planet a few years back. But they have instead discovered more indications that there is something out there, stretching the orbits of distant objects and perhaps even tilting the entire solar system to one side. 
   
   "If you were to remove this explanation and imagine Planet Nine does not exist, then you generate more problems than you solve. All of a sudden, you have five different puzzles, and you must come up with five different theories to explain them," Batygin explains. 
   
   What Brown and Batygin haven't found, however, is evidence that a ninth planet is anywhere near or will come remotely close to Earth anytime soon. And its aforementioned influence on the entire solar system takes place subtly and over a very long timescale 
   
   "Over long periods of time, Planet Nine will make the entire solar-system plane precess or wobble, just like a top on a table," Batygin said. 
   
   A world that is unseen, but has a gravitational impact that can be detected through its interaction with other bodies in our outer solar system, is unsurprisingly believed to be significantly massive and very, very far away. Brown and Batygin have estimated the mysterious cosmic neighbor to be perhaps 10 times the mass of Earth and 20 times farther from the sun than Neptune. 
   
   So now Batygin and Brown are trying to locate the hidden planet they once tried to disprove using the Subaru Telescope at Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii. They call it the "best tool" for finding distant, dim objects hiding in the broad, black sky. 
   
   As for spotting Nibiru or Planet X on a collision course with Earth, you could do that by looking up at the sky with your naked eye, where it would easily be visible. Don't see it? That's because it doesn't exist and also, it hasn't been hiding behind the sun for years, because that idea goes against simple geometry. 
   
   So carry on and don't worry about unseen colliding planets. Asteroids, though, are another matter... 
   
   Technically Literate: Original works of short fiction with unique perspectives on tech, exclusively on CNET. 
   
   Crowd Control: A crowdsourced science fiction novel written by CNET readers. ||||| It might be lingering bashfully on the icy outer edges of our solar system, hiding in the dark, but subtly pulling strings behind the scenes: stretching out the orbits of distant bodies, perhaps even tilting the entire solar system to one side. 
   
   If a planet is there, it's extremely distant and will stay that way (with no chance -- in case you're wondering -- of ever colliding with Earth, or bringing "days of darkness").It is a possible "Planet Nine" -- a world perhaps 10 times the mass of Earth and 20 times farther from the sun than Neptune. The signs so far are indirect, mainly its gravitational footprints, but that adds up to a compelling case nonetheless. 
   
   One of its most dedicated trackers, in fact, says it is now harder to imagine our solar system without a Planet Nine than with one. 
   
   "There are now five different lines of observational evidence pointing to the existence of Planet Nine," said Konstantin Batygin, a planetary astrophysicist at Caltech in Pasadena, California, whose team may be closing in. "If you were to remove this explanation and imagine Planet Nine does not exist, then you generate more problems than you solve. All of a sudden, you have five different puzzles, and you must come up with five different theories to explain them." 
   
   Batygin and his co-author, Caltech astronomer Mike Brown, described the first three breadcrumbs on Planet Nine's trail in a January 2016 paper, published in the Astronomical Journal. Six known objects in the distant Kuiper Belt, a region of icy bodies stretching from Neptune outward toward interstellar space, all have elliptical orbits pointing in the same direction. That would be unlikely -- and suspicious -- enough. But these orbits also are tilted the same way, about 30 degrees "downward" compared to the pancake-like plane within which the planets orbit the sun. 
   
   Breadcrumb number three: Computer simulations of the solar system with Planet Nine included show there should be more objects tilted with respect to the solar plane. In fact, the tilt would be on the order of 90 degrees, as if the plane of the solar system and these objects formed an "X" when viewed edge-on. Sure enough, Brown realized that five such objects already known to astronomers fill the bill. 
   
   Two more clues emerged after the original paper. A second article from the team, this time led by Batygin's graduate student, Elizabeth Bailey, showed that Planet Nine could have tilted the planets of our solar system during the last 4.5 billion years. This could explain a longstanding mystery: Why is the plane in which the planets orbit tilted about 6 degrees compared to the sun's equator? 
   
   "Over long periods of time, Planet Nine will make the entire solar-system plane precess or wobble, just like a top on a table," Batygin said. 
   
   The last telltale sign of Planet Nine's presence involves the solar system's contrarians: objects from the Kuiper Belt that orbit in the opposite direction from everything else in the solar system. Planet Nine's orbital influence would explain why these bodies from the distant Kuiper Belt end up "polluting" the inner Kuiper Belt. 
   
   "No other model can explain the weirdness of these high-inclination orbits," Batygin said. "It turns out that Planet Nine provides a natural avenue for their generation. These things have been twisted out of the solar system plane with help from Planet Nine and then scattered inward by Neptune." 
   
   The remaining step is to find Planet Nine itself. Batygin and Brown are using the Subaru Telescope at Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii to try to do just that. The instrument is the "best tool" for picking out dim, extremely distant objects lost in huge swaths of sky, Batygin said. 
   
   But where did Planet Nine come from? Batygin says he spends little time ruminating on its origin -- whether it is a fugitive from our own solar system or, just maybe, a wandering rogue planet captured by the sun's gravity. 
   
   "I think Planet Nine's detection will tell us something about its origin," he said. 
   
   Other scientists offer a different possible explanation for the Planet Nine evidence cited by Batygin. A recent analysis based on a sky mapping project called the Outer Solar System Origins Survey, which discovered more than 800 new "trans-Neptunian objects," suggests that the evidence also could be consistent with a random distribution of such objects. Still, the analysis, from a team led by Cory Shankman of the University of Victoria, could not rule out Planet Nine. 
   
   If Planet Nine is found, it will be a homecoming of sorts, or at least a family reunion. Over the past 20 years, surveys of planets around other stars in our galaxy have found the most common types to be "super Earths" and their somewhat larger cousins -- bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. 
   
   Yet these common, garden-variety planets are conspicuously absent from our solar system. Weighing in at roughly 10 times Earth's mass, the proposed Planet Nine would make a good fit. 
   
   Planet Nine could turn out to be our missing super Earth. 
   
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   Written by Pat BrennanElizabeth LandauJet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.818-354-6425elizabeth.landau@jpl.nasa.gov2017-259 ||||| A possible "Planet Nine" in Earth's solar system would orbit far beyond Neptune's orbit (visible as a bright ring around the sun in this artist's illustration). 
   
   Planet Nine is out there, and astronomers are determined to find it, according to a new statement from NASA. In fact, mounting evidence suggests it's hard to imagine our solar system without the unseen world. 
   
   The hypothetical planet is believed to be about 10 times more massive than Earth and located in the dark, outer reaches of the solar system, approximately 20 times farther from the sun than Neptune is. While the mysterious world still has yet to be found, astronomers have discovered a number of strange features of our solar system that are best explained by the presence of a ninth planet, according to the NASA statement. 
   
   "There are now five different lines of observational evidence pointing to the existence of Planet Nine," Konstantin Batygin, a planetary astrophysicist at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, said in the statement. "If you were to remove this explanation and imagine Planet Nine does not exist, then you generate more problems than you solve. All of a sudden, you have five different puzzles, and you must come up with five different theories to explain them." [The Evidence for 'Planet Nine' in Our Solar System (Gallery)] 
   
   Researchers say an anomaly in the orbits of distant Kuiper Belt objects points to the existence of an unknown planet orbiting the sun. Here's what we know of this potential "Planet Nine." Credit: by Karl Tate, Infographics artist 
   
   In 2016, Batygin and co-author Mike Brown, an astronomer at Caltech, published a study that examined the elliptical orbits of six known objects in the Kuiper Belt, a distant region of icy bodies stretching from Neptune outward toward interstellar space. Their findings revealed that all of those Kuiper Belt objects have elliptical orbits that point in the same direction and are tilted about 30 degrees "downward" compared to the plane in which the eight official planets circle the sun, according to the statement. 
   
   Using computer simulations of the solar system with a Planet Nine, Batygin and Brown also showed that there should be even more objects tilted a whopping 90 degrees with respect to the solar plane. Further investigation revealed that five such objects were already known to fit these parameters, the researchers said. 
   
   Since then, the astronomers have found new evidence that further supports the existence of Planet Nine. With help from Elizabeth Bailey, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at Caltech, the team showed that Planet Nine's influence might have tilted the planets of our solar system, which would explain why the zone in which the eight major planets orbit the sun is tilted by about 6 degrees compared to the sun's equator. 
   
   "Over long periods of time, Planet Nine will make the entire solar-system plane precess, or wobble, just like a top on a table," Batygin said in the statement. 
   
   Finally, the researchers demonstrate how Planet Nine's presence could explain why some Kuiper Belt objects orbit in the opposite direction from everything else in the solar system. 
   
   "No other model can explain the weirdness of these high-inclination orbits," Batygin said in the statement. "It turns out that Planet Nine provides a natural avenue for their generation. These things have been twisted out of the solar system plane with help from Planet Nine and then scattered inward by Neptune." 
   
   Going forward, the researchers plan to use the Subaru Telescope at Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii to find Planet Nine, and then deduce where the mysterious world came from. 
   
   The most common type of planets discovered around other stars in our galaxy has been what astronomers call "super Earths" — rocky worlds that are larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. However, no such planet has yet been discovered in our solar system, meaning that Planet Nine could be our missing "super Earth," the researchers said. 
   
   Editor's Note: This article has been updated to clarify that some Kuiper Belt objects unexpectedly orbit in the opposite direction to the rest of the Solar System, not all of them. 
   
   Follow Samantha Mathewson @Sam_Ashley13. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
target: – Astronomically inclined conspiracy theorists have long been predicting the Earth's demise in a collision with a rogue planet called "Niburu" or "Planet X" biding its time out of sight somewhere in the solar system, CNET reports. In fact, Niburu was "supposed" to crash into Earth just last month. And while death-by-planet remains unlikely, the existence of an undiscovered planet in our solar system is now almost a certainty, according to NASA. Planetary astrophysicist Konstantin Batygin and professor Mike Brown set out to disprove the existence of a hidden planet a few years ago and, ironically, ended up finding convincing evidence for the existence of what they call "Planet Nine." The main evidence for Planet Nine comes from its "gravitational footprint," but it's convincing enough that Batygin says the solar system makes a lot more sense with the hidden planet than without it, Space.com reports. Planet Nine is believed to be 10 times more massive than Earth and located about 20 times farther from the sun than Neptune. From its position in the far reaches of the solar system, it has tilted and reversed the orbits of objects in the Kuiper Belt, according to Batygin and Brown. It also may be the reason the orbits of the planets are slightly off from the sun's equator. Finally, Planet Nine could be the "super Earth" frequently found orbiting other stars but "conspicuously absent" around ours. Oh, and NASA wants conspiracy theorists to know Planet Nine, if it exists, is staying far away from Earth. (Scientists just found the smallest possible star.)