It Is Unlikely That Planet Nine Is A Black Hole, But Not Impossible

Could a black hole lurk in the outer solar system? Probably not.

With a mass somewhere between five and ten Earths, Planet Nine would likely be roughly Neptune-sized. Even at a distance of 500 AU it would be large enough to be seen by our best telescopes. But surveys by both Pan-STARRS and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer found no evidence of the planet. These surveys can't rule out Planet Nine's existence, but it does put a bit of a damper on the idea. After all, if it's out there we should be able to see it.

It sounds like a crazy idea, but it isn't outside the realm of possibility. To begin with, if Planet Nine is a planet-mass black hole, its gravitational pull on TNOs would be exactly the same. Technically, the gravitational evidence for a ninth planet is also evidence for a small black hole. And it is possible that planet-mass black holes exist.

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