Search for 'Planet Nine': astronomers seek help from amateur stargazers

Astronomers from the Australian National University (ANU) are seeking help from amateur stargazers in searching for a ninth planet in our Solar System.

The stargazers have also been promised a say in naming the planet if they spot it on a website that shows digital images of space. Of course, Pluto which has been debated for long is not among the possibilities.

The website displays thousands of images taken by a telescope at the university's Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales. Gazers are expected to spot unusual movements and shapes among these. To make it easier for the gazers, SkyMapper images have been processed to apply a colour-code to objects moving between one image and the next.

The images are of the southern sky which is less explored. A northern sky search was organised by Nasa last month.

"If this planet exists, it's already in one of our thousands and thousands of images," ANU astronomer Dr Brad Tucker told the BBC. "We said, 'hey, let's have the public help us and search these images to see if we can find it together," he added.

While spotting planets and stars is open to all, their classification and naming depend upon the decrees of the International Astronomical Union. The belief in 'Planet Nine' became more prominent last year when scientists at the California Institute of Technology announced that a planet 10 times the mass of Earth probably exists around 19 billion miles away.