A pair of theoretical physicists are reporting that the same observations inspiring the hunt for a ninth planet might instead be evidence within the solar system of a modified law of gravity originally developed to understand the rotation of galaxies.
Researchers Harsh Mathur, a professor of physics at Case Western Reserve University, and Katherine Brown, an associate professor of physics at Hamilton College, made the assertion after studying the effect the Milky Way galaxy would have on objects in the outer solar system --MOND proposes Isaac Newton's famous law of gravity is valid up to a point.
"MOND is really good at explaining galactic-scale observations," Mathur said,"but I hadn't expected that it would have noticeable effects on the outer solar system."Mathur and Brown had studied MOND's effect on galactic dynamics before. But they became interested in MOND's more local effects after astronomers announced in 2016 that a handful of objects in the outer solar system showed orbital anomalies that could be explained by a ninth planet.
Instead, Mathur and Brown found MOND predicts precisely clustering that astronomers have observed. Over millions of years, they argue, the orbits of some objects in the outer solar system would be dragged into alignment with the galaxy's own gravitational field. The authors caution that the current dataset is small and that that any number of other possibilities might prove to be correct; other astronomers have argued the orbital peculiarities are the result of observational bias, for example.
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