ontemporary business and science treat as a project (or program) any undertaking, carried out

individually or collaboratively and possibly involving research or design, that is

carefully planned (usually by a project team[citation needed]) to achieve a particular aim.[1]
An alternative view sees a project managerially as a sequence of events: a "set of interrelated
tasks to be executed over a fixed period and within certain cost and other limitations".[2]
A project may be a temporary (rather than permanent) social system (work system), possibly
constituted by teams (within or across organizations) to accomplish particular tasks under time
constraints.[3]
A project may be a part of wider programme management[citation needed] or an ad hoc structure.
Note that open-source software "projects" (for example) may lack defined team-membership,
precise planning and time-limited durations.
Planet Nine is a hypothetical planet in the outer region of the Solar
System.[2] Its gravitational effects could explain the unlikely clustering of orbits for a group
of extreme trans-Neptunian objects (eTNOs), bodies beyond Neptune that orbit the Sun at
distances averaging more than 250 times that of the Earth. These eTNOs tend to make their
closest approaches to the Sun in one sector, and their orbits are similarly tilted. These
improbable alignments suggest that an undiscovered planet may be shepherding the orbits of
the most distant known Solar System objects.[1][4][5]
This undiscovered super-Earth-sized planet would have a predicted mass of five to ten times
the Earth, and an elongated orbit 400 to 800 times as far from the Sun as the Earth. Konstantin
Batygin and Michael E. Brown suggest that Planet Nine could be the core of a giant planet that
was ejected from its original orbit by Jupiter during the genesis of the Solar System. Others
propose that the planet was captured from another star,[6] was once a rogue planet, or that it
formed on a distant orbit and was pulled into an eccentric orbit by a passing star.[1]
As of 2018, no observation of Planet Nine had been announced.[7][8] While sky surveys such
as Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer(WISE) and Pan-STARRS did not detect Planet Nine,
they have not ruled out the existence of a Neptune-diameter object in the outer Solar
System.[3][9] The ability of these past sky surveys to detect Planet Nine were dependent on its
location and characteristics. Further surveys of the remaining regions are ongoing
using NEOWISE and the 8-meter Subaru Telescope.[7][10] Unless Planet Nine is observed, its
existence is purely conjectural. Several alternative theories have been proposed to explain the
observed clustering of TNOs.
ollowing the discovery of Neptune in 1846, there was considerable speculation that another
planet might exist beyond its orbit. The best known of these theories predicted the existence of
a distant planet that was influencing the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. After extensive
calculations Percival Lowell predicted the possible orbit and location of the hypothetical trans-
Neptunian planet and began an extensive search for it in 1906. He called the hypothetical
object Planet X, a name previously used by Gabriel Dallet.[11][12] After Voyager 2's flyby of
Neptune in 1989 the difference between Uranus' predicted and observed orbit was determined
to have been due to the use of a previously inaccurate mass of Neptune.[13]
Attempts to detect planets beyond Neptune by indirect means such as orbital perturbation date
back to before the discovery of Pluto. George Forbes was the first to postulate the existence of
trans-Neptunian planets in 1880, and his work is considered similar to more recent Planet Nine
theories. George Forbes proposed that there were two distant planets. One would have an
average distance from the Sun, or semi-major axis, of 100 astronomical units (AU), 100 times
that of the Earth. The second would have a semimajor axis of 300 AU. His proposed planets
would be responsible for a clustering of the aphelion distances of periodic comets similar to
that of the Jupiter-family comets.[14][15]
The discovery of Sedna's peculiar orbit in 2004 led to speculation that it had encountered a
massive body other than one of the eight known planets. Sedna's perihelion distance of 76 AU
is too large to be due to gravitational interactions with Neptune. Several authors proposed that
Sedna entered this orbit after encountering an unknown planet on a distant orbit, a member of
the open cluster that formed with the Sun, or another star that later passed near the Solar
System.[16][17] The announcement in March 2014 of the discovery of a second sednoid with a
perihelion distance of 80 AU, 2012 VP113, in a similar orbit led to renewed speculation that an
unknown super-Earth remained in the distant Solar System.[18][19]
At a conference in 2012 Rodney Gomes proposed that an undetected planet was responsible
for the orbits of some eTNOs with detached orbits and the large semi-major
axis Centaurs, small Solar System bodies that cross the orbits of the giant planets.[20][21] The
proposed Neptune-massed planet would be in a distant (1500 AU), eccentric (eccentricity0.4),
and inclined (inclination 40°) orbit. Like Planet Nine it would cause the perihelia of objects with
semi-major axes greater than 300 AU to oscillate, delivering some into planet-crossing orbits
and others into detached orbits like that of Sedna. In 2015 an article by Gomes, Soares, and
Brasser was published detailing their arguments.[22]
In 2014 astronomers Chad Trujillo and Scott S. Sheppard noted the similarities in the orbits of
Sedna and 2012 VP113 and several other eTNOs. They proposed that an unknown planet in a
circular orbit between 200 and 300 AU was perturbing their orbits. Later, in 2015, Raúl and
Carlos de la Fuente Marco argued that two massive planets in orbital resonancewere
necessary to produce the similarities of so many orbits.[4]
Several possible origins for Planet Nine have been examined including its ejection from the
neighborhood of the known giant planets, capture from another star, and in situ formation. In
their initial article, Batygin and Brown proposed that Planet Nine formed closer to the Sun and
was ejected into a distant eccentric orbit following a close encounter with Jupiter
or Saturn during the nebular epoch.[1] The gravity of a nearby star, or drag from the gaseous
remnants of the Solar nebula,[33] then reduced the eccentricity of its orbit. This raised its
perihelion, leaving it in a very wide but stable orbit beyond the influence of the other
planets.[34][35] Had it not been flung into the Solar System's farthest reaches, Planet Nine could
have accreted more mass from the proto-planetary disk and developed into the core of a gas
giant.[30][36] Instead, its growth was halted early, leaving it with a lower mass than Uranus or
Neptune.[37]
Dynamical friction from a massive belt of planetesimals could also enable Planet Nine's
capture in a stable orbit. Recent models propose that a 60–130 Earth mass disk of
planetesimals could have formed as the gas was cleared from the outer parts of the proto-
planetary disk.[38] As Planet Nine passed through this disk its gravity would alter the paths of the
individual objects in a way that reduced Planet Nine's velocity relative to it. This would lower
the eccentricity of Planet Nine and stabilize its orbit. If this disk had a distant inner edge, 100–
200 AU, a planet encountering Neptune would have a 20% chance of being captured in an
orbit similar to that proposed for Planet Nine, with the observed clustering more likely if the
inner edge is at 200 AU. Unlike the gas nebula, the planetesimal disk is likely to have been
long lived, potentially allowing a later capture.[39]
Planet Nine could have been captured from outside the Solar System during a close encounter
between the Sun and another star. If a planet was in a distant orbit around this star, three-
body interactions during the encounter could alter the planet's path, leaving it in a stable orbit
around the Sun. A planet originating in a system without Jupiter-massed planets could remain
in a distant eccentric orbit for a longer time, increasing its chances of capture.[6] The wider
range of possible orbits would reduce the odds of its capture in a relatively low inclination orbit
to 1–2 percent.[40] This process could also occur with rogue planets, but the likelihood of their
capture is much smaller, with only 0.05–0.10% being captured in orbits similar to that proposed
for Planet Nine.[41]
An encounter with another star could also alter the orbit of a distant planet, shifting it from a
circular to an eccentric orbit. The in situ formation of a planet at this distance would require a
very massive and extensive disk,[1] or the outward drift of solids in a dissipating disk forming a
narrow ring from which the planet accreted over a billion years.[42] If a planet formed at such a
great distance while the Sun was in its original cluster, the probability of it remaining bound to
the Sun in a highly eccentric orbit is roughly 10%.[40] A previous article reported that if the
massive disk extended beyond 80 AU some objects scattered outward by Jupiter and Saturn
would have been left in high inclination (inc > 50°), low eccentricity orbits which have not been
observed.[43]