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Source: arxiv.org/abs/2504.17288

It started with a speck. Just a faint dot in two separate sky surveys, one from 1983, the other from 2006. At first glance, it’s nothing remarkable. But if astronomers are right, this unassuming blip might be a colossal discovery: the elusive, long-hypothesized Planet Nine.

The new candidate object shows a shift of 47 arcminutes across 23 years, an incredibly slow movement that suggests it could be orbiting the Sun from great distance. Its infrared brightness implies a mass possibly exceeding Neptune’s.

But there’s a catch: its orbital tilt doesn’t match predictions. Mike Brown himself reviewed the findings and cast doubt, noting that this object’s extreme tilt (around 120 degrees) doesn’t align with the expected orbit of Planet Nine.

Still, even if this isn’t the planet astronomers have been chasing, it’s something. And in the vast, dim reaches beyond Neptune, even a false lead can point us toward deeper truths.

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