The planet takes 15,000 years (!) To complete a orbit around its parent stars and may be able to help us find our own Planet X.

Astronomers tracked down the exoplanet – which has been given the name HD106906b – in 2013, but did not know anything about the orbit of the object at the time. Thanks to observations made by the Hubble space telescope, this has now changed.

Big distance
Hubble leaned over the system of which HD 106906b is part and which is 336 light-years away. At the heart of the galaxy we find two young stars orbiting each other. And around it HD 106906b runs. Hubble’s observations indicate that the planet is exceptionally distant from its parent stars. The distance between HD 106906b and the parent stars is more than 730 times greater than the distance between the Earth and the Sun.

The enormous distance between the exoplanet and the binary star results in an extensive orbit. Also, because the planet is not in a hurry, it takes about 15,000 years to complete a circle around the parent stars.

It gets weirder
What is also striking is that the orbit is very eccentric (in other words, it deviates strongly from a circular shape). In addition, there is a strong inclination. In concrete terms, this means that the orbit is not in the same plane as the debris disk that is still around the young stars, but is slightly slanted on it. “To understand how strange this is, all we have to do is look at our own solar system where we see that all the planets there are roughly in the same plane,” says researcher Meji Nguyen. “It would be bizarre if, for example, Jupiter’s orbit were to make an angle of 30 degrees to the orbital plane in which all other planets are located.”

Ask
The strange orbit of HD 106906b raises many questions. For the planet was born from the debris disk it is now so far away from and its orbit is now so skewed. It begs the question of how this planet got into its strange orbit from that debris disk. The researchers do have ideas about that. HD 106906b may have originated much closer to its parent stars, but then – due to the resistance it experienced in the debris disk – moved even further towards the parent stars. They then gave the planet a big swing with their gravity, so that it was on course to leave the system. A passing star that came very close to this system then caused the planet’s orbit to stabilize with its gravity, leaving HD 106906b stuck in its mother system.

Planet X
Does this hypothesis sound familiar to you? That could be right. A similar hypothesis has been devised to explain the exceptional orbit of the still hypothetical Planet X in our own solar system. This planet would orbit the sun at a great distance and also have an eccentric and inclined orbit. This planet is believed to have originated at the heart of our solar system and then tossed away by Jupiter. A passing star would have stabilized this planet’s orbit, so that it now resides in the outer regions of our solar system.

Kuiper belt objects
Whether there is a Planet X in our own solar system is still unclear. Astronomers have only found indirect clues to the planet’s existence to date. These are Kuiper belt objects with a very special orbit that can be explained by the presence of a heavy object: Planet X. “Despite the fact that we have not yet detected Planet X, the orbit of the planet can be deduced from the effect that the planet has on various objects in the outer regions of the solar system, ”said researcher Robert De Rosa. “This suggests that if a planet is indeed responsible for the orbits of these Trans-Neptunian objects, it must have an eccentric and inclined orbit. That predicted orbit of Planet X is comparable to the orbit of HD 106906b. ”

Perhaps more research into HD 106906b can also provide more insight into where we can best look for our own Planet X – if it exists. HD 106906b will undoubtedly enjoy a lot of attention in the near future. For example, there are already plans to take a closer look at the planet and environment with the James Webb Space Telescope. It is hoped that a number of pressing questions about the origin and subsequent relocation of HD 106906b can be answered in this way.