Image: science.org
The Story
IRAS and AKARI found a candidate pair, not yet a confirmed planet orbiting the Sun.
IRAS and AKARI may contain a moving infrared source, but one faint pair cannot establish its identity, orbit, or gravitational binding. The missing false-alarm probability and the mismatch with the original Planet Nine orbit leave follow-up observations essential.
- EvidenceThe surveys provide a plausible starting signal, not a direct planetary detection.
- Next stepIndependent observations must recover the source and determine whether its motion and spectrum fit a bound planet.
- The study searched for slow-moving sources by comparing far-infrared surveys taken 23 years apart.
- The candidate’s location would place it far outside the original Planet Nine prediction, making it a potentially different planet even if real.
- The paper does not discuss a false-alarm probability, leaving the likelihood of a chance pairing unclear.
Source mix
7 sources
- 2 Early research (not yet peer-reviewed)
- 2 News reporting
- 2 Forum, video, personal
- 1 Other / unclassified
Deeper Insight
Two faint infrared dots put Planet Nine, the hypothetical ninth major planet, beyond the map built from orbital clues.
Two faint infrared detections, 23 years apart, move like one cold world. That makes Planet Nine, the hypothetical ninth major planet, a candidate, not a discovery. The possible orbit sits far outside the original prediction, and the paper gives no false-alarm odds. If the dots hold up, the outer Solar System may be hiding not the planet we imagined, but a stranger one.
- What it could changeA confirmed infrared planet would redraw the outer Solar System and split Planet Nine theory from Planet Nine evidence.
- How it touches todayAstronomers are already finding distant worlds by comparing old survey images for tiny movements.
- Our futureThe Solar System could keep expanding beyond the tidy map we mistake for the whole thing.
- Far-infrared surveys can search for distant planets through thermal emission and their motion across decades of observations.
- The candidate’s possible orbit lies far outside the original Planet Nine prediction, so a genuine object would not straightforwardly be the same planet proposed from Kuiper Belt dynamics.
- The reported signal is a single close pair among many detections, and its statistical chance of occurring is not provided.
Sources · 7
- 2 Early research (not yet peer-reviewed)
- 2 News reporting
- 2 Forum, video, personal
- 1 Other / unclassified
What do these mean?
- Early research (not yet peer-reviewed). A research paper posted publicly before independent experts have reviewed it (a preprint). Real researchers, but not yet checked.
- News reporting. Journalism: newspapers, magazines and news sites.
- Forum, video, personal. Forums, social posts, video, blogs and personal accounts.
- Other / unclassified. A site we have not classified yet. This says nothing good or bad about it.
Featured · Primary source · arxiv.org
[2504.17288] A Search for Planet Nine with IRAS and AKARI Data
Early research · not yet reviewed
[2504.17288] A Search for Planet Nine with IRAS and AKARI Data [Submitted on 24 Apr 2025] # Title: A Search for Planet Nine with IRAS and AKARI Data Authors: Terry Long Phan, Tomotsugu Goto, Issei Yamamura, Takao Nakagawa, Amos Y.-A. Chen, Cossas K.-W. Wu, Tetsuya Hashimoto, Simon C.-C. Ho, Seong Ji
Read sourcePrimary source · science.org
Astronomers searching for Planet Nine find possible hints of different planet
News reporting
Astronomers searching for Planet Nine find possible hints of different planet | Science | AAAS # Astronomers searching for Planet Nine find possible hints of different planet ## Analysis of decades-old data yields a faint, meandering point of light beyond Neptune—but many astronomers are skeptical -
Read sourcePrimary source · ar5iv.labs.arxiv.org
[2207.09985] Searching for giant planets in the outer Solar System with far-infrared all-sky surveys
Early research · not yet reviewed
[2207.09985] Searching for giant planets in the outer Solar System with far-infrared all-sky surveys # Searching for giant planets in the outer Solar System with far-infrared all-sky surveys Chris Sedgwick and Stephen Serjeant School of Physical Sciences, The Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA (
Read source