"It's in my living room," said Sandra Oh who is currently nominated for an Emmy for her role in Killing Eve There may be an alien planet lurking within Earth's own solar system If the hypothetical Planet Nine does indeed exist, the sun probably ripped the world away from another star long ago Earlier this year, astronomers Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown, both of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, announced the possible existence of Planet Nine a world perhaps 10 times as massive as Earth that's thought to lie in the outer solar system Nobody has seen Planet Nine; Batygin and Brown inferred its existence from the odd orbits of a half-dozen small bodies in the frigid zone beyond Neptune known as the Kuiper Belt Some scientists around the world are looking for Planet Nine through a variety of telescopes while others are trying to figure out where it came from (if the planet does indeed exist) Some researchers think Planet Nine probably formed within the solar system The world coalesced closer to the sun than it currently lies and was booted to the far outer reaches by some kind of gravitational interaction which reports the results of computer modeling work supports a more exotic origin story: Planet Nine was likely stolen from another star about 4.5 billion years ago when the sun and many other members of its stellar birth cluster were in close proximity to each other "When the sun later departed from the stellar cluster in which it was born, Planet Nine was stuck in an orbit around the sun," Mustill said More work will be required to firm up this hypothesis the existence of Planet Nine is still an open question (A long-ago capture would likely have left an "imprint" on some small objects beyond Neptune so further study of these bodies could shed light on Planet Nine's formation But if Mustill and his colleagues are right Planet Nine could be an even more interesting place than scientists had imagined would be able to reach using a space probe," Mustill said The new study was published online last month in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. You can read an abstract for free here: http://mnrasl.oxfordjournals.org/content/460/1/L109 Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com. but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California James Webb Space Telescope captures thousands of galaxies in a cosmic 'feast' (image) Astronomers gaze into 'dark nebula' 60 times the size of the solar system (video) This iconic 'Star Wars' Rebel pilot helmet from the Battle of Hoth could fetch $400K at auction Copyright © 2021 Kaaos Digital Group Oy