Determination of the Planet X Position and Estimation of its Gravitational Influence on the Solar System Bodies

Yu. D. Medvedev, D. E. Vavilov, Yu. S. Bondarenko, D. A. Bulekbaev

Transactions of IAA RAS, issue 44, 97–106 (2018)

DOI: 10.32876/ApplAstron.44.97-106

Keywords: the solar system, planets, trans-Neptunian bodies, comets, ephemerides.

Abstract

The authors of the paper [1] proposed that a planet with 10 earth’s masses and an orbit of 700 a. u. semi major axis and 0.6 eccentricity could explain the observed distribution of the Kuiper Belt objects nearby Sedna. Then Fienga et al. [2] used the INPOP planetary ephemeris model as a sensor for testing an additional body in the solar system. They defined the planet position on the orbit using the most sensitive data set — the Cassini radio ranging data. Here we used near-parabolic comets for determination of the planet’s position on the orbit. We made a search for the comets with low Minimum Orbit Intersection Distances (MOID) from the planet’s orbit, assuming that some comets had approached the planet in the past. Three “new” comets with hyperbolic orbits were chosen from the list of 805 near-parabolic ones. We considered both the direct and the inverse cases of the planet’s motion. The true anomaly of the planet was in the interval (176°, 182° ) in the case of the direct motion; thus, the right ascension, the declination and the geocentric distance of the planet were in the intervals (83°, 88°), [7°,10°], and (1116, 1119) a. u., correspondingly. The true anomaly was in (216°, 224°) in the case of the inverse motion; and all other values in that case were in the intervals (48°, 55°), (–12°,–8°) and (800, 874) a. u. The true anomaly for the inverse motion, υ, had to be transformed by 360°-v in order to make a comparison with the direct motion case. It gave us the interval (136°, 144°) which belonged to the intervals of the true anomaly of the possible planet’s position given by [2]. The improved position of the planet X made it possible to estimate its gravitational perturbations on the motion of the bodies of the solar system. Thus, perturbations from the planet X changed the orbital period of the Halley's Comet by 3.2 s.

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