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No—Planet Nine has not been confirmed. A 2025 study found one promising candidate match by comparing archival infrared observations from the IRAS and AKARI space surveys, taken 23 years apart. The match may be consistent with a distant planet, but the observations do not establish its orbit or prove that it is a planet.
What did the researchers find?
Terry Long Phan and coauthors searched the all-sky far-infrared data from IRAS and AKARI for objects whose positions and brightness could match a slow-moving body far beyond Neptune. The surveys observed the sky at epochs separated by 23 years, a long enough interval to make the apparent movement of a very distant object potentially measurable.
After applying their positional and flux criteria, the researchers had 13 candidate pairs to inspect. Image inspection left one good candidate. The study associated its selection approach with objects at roughly 500–700 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun and masses of 7–17 Earth masses. Those are ranges used to guide the search, not measured properties of a confirmed object.
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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsA report in BBC Sky at Night Magazine describes the candidate pair as shifting 47.5 arcminutes between the survey observations—about one and a half times the apparent width of the full Moon. That is a reported positional difference, not by itself proof that both detections show the same planet.
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Why is this only a candidate?
Two positions separated by decades can suggest motion, but they are not enough to reconstruct a reliable orbit. The paper states: “However, AKARI and IRAS detections are not enough to determine the full orbit of this candidate.” Phan and coauthors say follow-up observations are needed to determine its Keplerian motion—the path and timing that would show whether the object behaves like a bound Solar System body.
That distinction matters: a candidate is a possible match worth checking; an orbital solution requires enough observations to establish consistent motion; and confirmation that the object is a planet requires the evidence to support that identification. This study reports the first of those, not the latter two.
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Why search for a distant planet in infrared?
A distant planet would be difficult to find in visible light because it reflects sunlight: the light must travel from the Sun to the planet and then back to Earth. Thermal infrared searches instead look for heat emitted by the object, which travels directly toward the observer. The IRAS–AKARI comparison therefore offers a way to look for a faint, cold body that might be hard to detect through reflected sunlight alone.
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The search is also difficult because the hypothetical planet’s orbital parameters are uncertain. Researchers cannot point to a precisely known location, so the area that needs to be searched is uncertain too. An infrared match in archival images can narrow the possibilities, but it does not remove the need for new observations.
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What follow-up could establish
The study’s authors call for observations that can test whether the candidate continues moving in a way consistent with a distant orbit. BBC Sky at Night Magazine reports that a possible follow-up could use DECam, the wide-field camera on the Victor M. Blanco Telescope in Chile. That is a proposed avenue, not evidence that follow-up has already occurred.
If new observations confirm the same object and provide enough positions to calculate its orbit, astronomers could assess whether its distance and motion fit the Planet Nine hypothesis. Until then, the archival match remains intriguing but inconclusive. The paper appeared in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, volume 42 (2025), article e064, after submission on 24 April 2025.
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