A team of astronomers at the California Institute of Technology claimed to have discovered traces of ninth planet in our solar system. Our solar system comprises many tiny planets, one such example is Pluto, formerly known as ninth planet. However, a celestial body is called a real planet if it is giant and round in shape like other planets in our solar system.

The proposed new planet is dubbed as planet-x and is anticipated to be 10 times the earth’s mass. “We’ve found evidence of a giant planet in the outer solar system, by ‘giant,’ I mean the size of Neptune, and by ‘outer solar system,’ I mean 10 to 20 times farther away than Pluto,” said Mike Brown, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology. Brown and his team’s research paper has been published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Brown with his other associates first embarked on this idea on analyzing orbits of six dwarf planets in the Kuiper belt past Neptune. They realized something was knocking these six dwarf planets out of alignment. This led to the idea that a large planet could be tugging on them. According to Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, the evidence found now are stronger than ever before.

The data was collected through NASA's Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn, the seventh planet from the Sun. The planet might exist out of the searchable zone, limiting astronomers in their research. The planet is predicted to be at great distance from earth, and if it really exists, then its discovery would take several years and may require huge telescope for the same. The next ultimate objective is to spot the planet in the sky.