The Kuiper Belt Objects, small bodies similar to Pluto beyond Neptune, have a particular distribution that is difficult to explain by pure chance. This is what led Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown at Caltech (US) to propose, in a paper published January 20, in The Astronomical Journal, the existence of a ninth planet of 10 Earth masses, whose perturbations on Kuiper Objects could have led to their current distribution. Using numerical simulations, the two scientists determined the possible orbit of this planet. To be able to reproduce the observed distribution of Kuiper Belt Objects, this orbit, with a semi-major axis of 700 AU, must be very eccentric (e = 0.6) and inclined (i = 30°), but no constraint on the current position of the planet is proposed in the study of Batygin and Brown. This does not facilitate the task of observers who need to search in all possible directions in longitude to try and discover this planet.
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