title: Homer Simpson

text: "The Simpsons" uses a floating timeline in which the characters never physically age, and, as such, the show is generally assumed to be always set in the current year. Nevertheless, in several episodes, events in Homer's life have been linked to specific time periods. "Mother Simpson" (season seven, 1995) depicts Homer's mother, Mona, as a radical who went into hiding in 1969 following a run-in with the law; "The Way We Was" (season two, 1991) shows Homer falling in love with Marge Bouvier as a senior at Springfield High School in 1974; and "I Married Marge" (season three, 1991) implies that Marge became pregnant with Bart in 1980. However, the episode "That '90s Show" (season 19, 2008) contradicted much of this backstory, portraying Homer and Marge as a twentysomething childless couple in the early 1990s. The episode "Do Pizza Bots Dream of Electric Guitars" (season 32, 2021) further contradicts this backstory, putting Homer's adolescence in the 1990s. Showrunner Matt Selman has explained that no version was the "official continuity." and that "they all kind of happened in their imaginary world, you know, and people can choose to love whichever version they love."


title: Homer Simpson

text: Due to the floating timeline, Homer's age has changed occasionally as the series developed; he was 34 in the early episodes, 36 in season four, 38 and 39 in season eight, and 40 in the eighteenth season, although even in those seasons his age is inconsistent. In the fourth season episode "Duffless", Homer's drivers license shows his birthdate of being May 12, 1956, which would have made him 36 years old at the time of the episode. During Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein's period as showrunners, they found that as they aged, Homer seemed to become older too, so they increased his age to 38. His height is 6' (1.83 m).


title: Homer Simpson

text: Naming the characters after members of his own family, Groening named Homer after his father, who himself had been named after the ancient Greek poet of the same name. Very little else of Homer's character was based on him, and to prove that the meaning behind Homer's name was not significant, Groening later named his own son Homer. According to Groening, "Homer originated with my goal to both amuse my real father, and just annoy him a little bit. My father was an athletic, creative, intelligent filmmaker and writer, and the only thing he had in common with Homer was a love of donuts." Although Groening has stated in several interviews that Homer was named after his father, he also claimed in several 1990 interviews that a character in the 1939 Nathanael West novel "The Day of the Locust" was the inspiration for naming Homer. In 2012 he clarified, "I took that name from a minor character in the novel "The Day of the Locust"... Since Homer was my father's name, and I thought Simpson was a funny name in that it had the word “simp” in it, which is short for “simpleton”—I just went with it." Homer's middle initial "J", which stands for "Jay", is a "tribute" to animated characters such as Bullwinkle J. Moose and Rocket J. Squirrel from "The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show", who got their middle initial from Jay Ward.


title: Homer Simpson

text: Homer made his debut with the rest of the Simpson family on April 19, 1987, in "The Tracey Ullman Show" short "Good Night". In 1989, the shorts were adapted into "The Simpsons", a half-hour series airing on the Fox Broadcasting Company. Homer and the Simpson family remained the main characters on this new show.


title: Homer Simpson

text: As currently depicted in the series, Homer's everyday clothing consists of a white shirt with short sleeves and open collar, blue pants, and gray shoes. He is overweight and bald, except for a fringe of hair around the back and sides of his head and two curling hairs on top, and his face always sports a growth of beard stubble that instantly regrows whenever he shaves.


title: Homer Simpson

text: The entire Simpson family was designed so that they would be recognizable in silhouette. The family was crudely drawn because Groening had submitted basic sketches to the animators, assuming they would clean them up; instead, they just traced over his drawings. By coincidence or not, Homer's look bears a resemblance to the cartoon character Adamsson, created by Swedish cartoonist Oscar Jacobsson in 1920. Homer's physical features are generally not used in other characters; for example, in the later seasons, no characters other than Homer, Grampa Simpson, Lenny Leonard, and Krusty the Clown have a similar beard line. When Groening originally designed Homer, he put his initials into the character's hairline and ear: the hairline resembled an 'M', and the right ear resembled a 'G'. Groening decided that this would be too distracting and redesigned the ear to look normal. However, he still draws the ear as a 'G' when he draws pictures of Homer for fans. The basic shape of Homer's head is described by director Mark Kirkland as a tube-shaped coffee can with a salad bowl on top. During the shorts, the animators experimented with the way Homer would move his mouth when talking. At one point, his mouth would stretch out back "beyond his beardline"; but this was dropped when it got "out of control." In some early episodes, Homer's hair was rounded rather than sharply pointed because animation director Wes Archer felt it should look disheveled. Homer's hair evolved to be consistently pointed. During the first three seasons, Homer's design for some close-up shots included small lines which were meant to be eyebrows. Groening strongly disliked them and they were eventually dropped.


title: Homer Simpson

text: In the season seven (1995) episode "Treehouse of Horror VI", Homer was computer animated into a three-dimensional character for the first time for the "Homer" segment of the episode. The computer animation directors at Pacific Data Images worked hard not to "reinvent the character". In the final minute of the segment, the 3D Homer ends up in a real world, live-action Los Angeles. The scene was directed by David Mirkin and was the first time a "Simpsons" character had been in the real world in the series. Because "Lisa's Wedding" (season six, 1995) is set fifteen years in the future, Homer's design was altered to make him older in the episode. He is heavier; one of the hairs on top of his head was removed; and an extra line was placed under the eye. A similar design has been used in subsequent flashforwards.


title: Homer Simpson

text: Homer's voice is performed by Dan Castellaneta, who voices numerous other characters, including Grampa Simpson, Krusty the Clown, Barney Gumble, Groundskeeper Willie, Mayor Quimby and Hans Moleman. Castellaneta had been part of the regular cast of "The Tracey Ullman Show" and had previously done some voice-over work in Chicago alongside his wife Deb Lacusta. Voices were needed for the Simpsons shorts, so the producers decided to ask Castellaneta and fellow cast member Julie Kavner to voice Homer and Marge rather than hire more actors. In the shorts and first season of the half-hour show, Homer's voice is different from the majority of the series. The voice began as a loose impression of Walter Matthau, but Castellaneta could not "get enough power behind that voice", or sustain his Matthau impression for the nine- to ten-hour-long recording sessions, and had to find something easier. During the second and third seasons of the half-hour show, Castellaneta "dropped the voice down" and developed it as more versatile and humorous, allowing Homer a fuller range of emotions.


title: Homer Simpson

text: Castellaneta's normal speaking voice does not bear any resemblance to Homer's. To perform Homer's voice, Castellaneta lowers his chin to his chest and is said to "let his I.Q. go". While in this state, he has ad-libbed several of Homer's least intelligent comments, such as the line "S-M-R-T; I mean, S-M-A-R-T!" from "Homer Goes to College" (season five, 1993) which was a genuine mistake made by Castellaneta during recording. Castellaneta likes to stay in character during recording sessions, and he tries to visualize a scene so that he can give the proper voice to it. Despite Homer's fame, Castellaneta claims he is rarely recognized in public, "except, maybe, by a die-hard fan".


title: Homer Simpson

text: "Homer's Barbershop Quartet" (season five, 1993) is the only episode where Homer's voice was provided by someone other than Castellaneta. The episode features Homer forming a barbershop quartet called The Be Sharps; and, at some points, his singing voice is provided by a member of The Dapper Dans. The Dapper Dans had recorded the singing parts for all four members of The Be Sharps. Their singing was intermixed with the normal voice actors' voices, often with a regular voice actor singing the melody and the Dapper Dans providing backup.


title: Homer Simpson

text: Until 1998, Castellaneta was paid $30,000 per episode. During a pay dispute in 1998, Fox threatened to replace the six main voice actors with new actors, going as far as preparing for casting of new voices. However, the dispute was soon resolved and he received $125,000 per episode until 2004 when the voice actors demanded that they be paid $360,000 an episode. The issue was resolved a month later, and Castellaneta earned $250,000 per episode. After salary re-negotiations in 2008, the voice actors receive approximately $400,000 per episode. Three years later, with Fox threatening to cancel the series unless production costs were cut, Castellaneta and the other cast members accepted a 30 percent pay cut, down to just over $300,000 per episode.


title: Homer Simpson

text: Executive producer Al Jean notes that in "The Simpsons"<nowiki>'</nowiki> writing room, "everyone loves writing for Homer", and many of his adventures are based on experiences of the writers. In the early seasons of the show, Bart was the main focus. But, around the fourth season, Homer became more of the focus. According to Matt Groening, this was because "With Homer, there's just a wider range of jokes you can do. And there are far more drastic consequences to Homer's stupidity. There's only so far you can go with a juvenile delinquent. We wanted Bart to do anything up to the point of him being tried in court as a dad. But Homer is a dad, and his boneheaded-ness is funnier. [...] Homer is launching himself headfirst into every single impulsive thought that occurs to him."


title: Homer Simpson

text: Homer's behavior has changed a number of times through the run of the series. He was originally "very angry" and oppressive toward Bart, but these characteristics were toned down somewhat as his persona was further explored. In early seasons, Homer appeared concerned that his family was going to make him look bad; however, in later episodes he was less anxious about how he was perceived by others. In the first several years, Homer was often portrayed as dumb yet well-meaning, but during Mike Scully's tenure as executive producer (seasons nine, 1997 to twelve, 2001), he became more of "a boorish, self-aggrandizing oaf". Chris Suellentrop of "Slate" wrote, "under Scully's tenure, "The Simpsons" became, well, a cartoon. ... Episodes that once would have ended with Homer and Marge bicycling into the sunset... now end with Homer blowing a tranquilizer dart into Marge's neck." Fans have dubbed this incarnation of the character "Jerkass Homer". At voice recording sessions, Castellaneta has rejected material written in the script that portrayed Homer as being too mean. He believes that Homer is "boorish and unthinking, but he'd never be mean on purpose." When editing "The Simpsons Movie", several scenes were changed to make Homer more sympathetic.


title: Homer Simpson

text: The writers have depicted Homer with a declining intelligence over the years; they explain this was not done intentionally, but it was necessary to top previous jokes. For example, in "When You Dish Upon a Star", (season 10, 1998) the writers included a scene where Homer admits that he cannot read. The writers debated including this plot twist because it would contradict previous scenes in which Homer does read, but eventually they decided to keep the joke because they found it humorous. The writers often debate how far to go in portraying Homer's stupidity; one suggested rule is that "he can never forget his own name".


title: Homer Simpson

text: The comic efficacy of Homer's personality lies in his frequent bouts of bumbling stupidity, laziness and his explosive anger. He has a low intelligence level and is described by director David Silverman as "creatively brilliant in his stupidity". Homer also shows immense apathy towards work, is overweight, and "is devoted to his stomach". His short attention span is evidenced by his impulsive decisions to engage in various hobbies and enterprises, only to "change ... his mind when things go badly". Homer often spends his evenings drinking Duff Beer at Moe's Tavern, and was shown in the episode "Duffless" (season four, 1993) as a full-blown alcoholic. He is very envious of his neighbors, Ned Flanders and his family, and is easily enraged by Bart. Homer will often strangle Bart on impulse upon Bart angering him (and can also be seen saying one of his catchphrases, "Why you little—!") in a cartoonish manner. The first instance of Homer strangling Bart was in the short "Family Portrait". According to Groening, the rule was that Homer could only strangle Bart impulsively, never with premeditation, because doing so "seems sadistic. If we keep it that he's ruled by his impulses, then he can easily switch impulses. So, even though he impulsively wants to strangle Bart, he also gives up fairly easily." Another of the original ideas entertained by Groening was that Homer would "always get his comeuppance or Bart had to strangle him back", but this was dropped. Homer shows no compunction about expressing his rage, and does not attempt to hide his actions from people outside the family.


title: Homer Simpson

text: Homer has complex relationships with his family. As previously noted, he and Bart are the most at odds; but the two commonly share adventures and are sometimes allies, with some episodes (particularly in later seasons) showing that the pair have a strange respect for each other's cunning. Homer and Lisa have opposite personalities and he usually overlooks Lisa's talents, but when made aware of his neglect, does everything he can to help her. The show also occasionally implies Homer forgets he has a third child, Maggie; while the episode "And Maggie Makes Three" suggests she is the chief reason Homer took and remains at his regular job (season six, 1995). While Homer's thoughtless antics often upset his family, he on many occasions has also revealed himself to be a caring and loving father and husband: in "Lisa the Beauty Queen", (season four, 1992) he sold his cherished ride on the Duff blimp and used the money to enter Lisa in a beauty pageant so she could feel better about herself; in "Rosebud", (season five, 1993) he gave up his chance at wealth to allow Maggie to keep a cherished teddy bear; in "Radio Bart", (season three, 1992) he spearheads an attempt to dig Bart out after he had fallen down a well; in "A Milhouse Divided", (season eight, 1996) he arranges a surprise second wedding with Marge to make up for their unsatisfactory first ceremony; and despite a poor relationship with his father Abraham "Grampa" Simpson, whom he placed in a nursing home as soon as he could while the Simpson family often do their best to avoid unnecessary contact with Grampa, Homer has shown feelings of love for his father from time to time.


title: Homer Simpson

text: Homer is "a (happy) slave to his various appetites". He has an apparently vacuous mind, but occasionally exhibits a surprising depth of knowledge about various subjects, such as the composition of the Supreme Court of the United States, Inca mythology, bankruptcy law, and cell biology. Homer's brief periods of intelligence are overshadowed, however, by much longer and consistent periods of ignorance, forgetfulness, and stupidity. Homer has a low IQ of 55, which would actually make him unable to speak or perform basic tasks, and has variously been attributed to the hereditary "Simpson Gene" (which eventually causes every male member of the family to become incredibly stupid), his alcohol problem, exposure to radioactive waste, repetitive cranial trauma, and a crayon lodged in the frontal lobe of his brain. In the 2001 episode "HOMR", Homer has the crayon removed, boosting his IQ to 105; although he bonds with Lisa, his newfound capacity for understanding and reason makes him unhappy, and he has the crayon reinserted. Homer often debates with his own mind, expressed in voiceover. His mind has a tendency to offer dubious advice, which occasionally helps him make the right decision, but often fails spectacularly. His mind has even become completely frustrated and, through sound effects, walked out on Homer. These exchanges were often introduced because they filled time and were easy for the animators to work on. They were phased out after the producers "used every possible permutation".


title: Homer Simpson

text: Producer Mike Reiss said Homer was his favorite "Simpsons" character to write: "Homer's just a comedy writer's dream. He has everything wrong with him, every comedy trope. He's fat and bald and stupid and lazy and angry and an alcoholic. I'm pretty sure he embodies all seven deadly sins." John Swartzwelder, who wrote 60 episodes, said he wrote Homer as if he were "a big talking dog ... One moment he's the saddest man in the world, because he's just lost his job, or dropped his sandwich, or accidentally killed his family. Then, the next moment, he's the happiest man in the world, because he's just found a penny — maybe under one of his dead family members ... If you write him as a dog you'll never go wrong." Reiss felt this was insightful, saying: "Homer is just pure emotion, no long-term memory, everything is instant gratification. And, you know, has good dog qualities, too. I think, loyalty, friendliness, and just kind of continuous optimism."


title: Homer Simpson

text: Homer's influence on comedy and culture has been significant. In 2010, "Entertainment Weekly" named Homer "the greatest character of the last 20 years". He was placed second on "TV Guide"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s 2002 Top 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters, behind Bugs Bunny; fifth on Bravo's 100 Greatest TV Characters, one of only four cartoon characters on that list; and first in a Channel 4 poll of the greatest television characters of all time. In 2007, "Entertainment Weekly" placed Homer ninth on their list of the "50 Greatest TV icons" and first on their 2010 list of the "Top 100 Characters of the Past Twenty Years". Homer was also the runaway winner in British polls that determined who viewers thought was the "greatest American" and which fictional character people would like to see become the President of the United States. His relationship with Marge was included in "TV Guide" list of "The Best TV Couples of All Time". In 2022, "Paste" writers claimed that Homer is the second best cartoon character of all time.


title: Homer Simpson

text: Dan Castellaneta has won several awards for voicing Homer, including four Primetime Emmy Awards for "Outstanding Voice-Over Performance" in 1992 for "Lisa's Pony", 1993 for "Mr. Plow", in 2004 for "Today I Am a Clown", and in 2009 for "Father Knows Worst". However, in the case of "Today I Am a Clown", it was for voicing "various characters" and not solely for Homer. In 2010, Castellaneta received a fifth Emmy nomination for voicing Homer and Grampa in the episode "Thursdays with Abie". In 1993, Castellaneta was given a special Annie Award, "Outstanding Individual Achievement in the Field of Animation", for his work as Homer on "The Simpsons". In 2004, Castellaneta and Julie Kavner (the voice of Marge) won a Young Artist Award for "Most Popular Mom & Dad in a TV Series". In 2005, Homer and Marge were nominated for a Teen Choice Award for "Choice TV Parental Units". Various episodes in which Homer is strongly featured have won Emmy Awards for Outstanding Animated Program, including "Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment" in 1991, "Lisa's Wedding" in 1995, "Homer's Phobia" in 1997, "Trash of the Titans" in 1998, "HOMR" in 2001, "Three Gays of the Condo" in 2003 and "Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind" in 2008. In 2000, Homer and the rest of the Simpson family were awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard. In 2017, Homer Simpson was celebrated by the National Baseball Hall of Fame, to honor the 25th anniversary of the episode "Homer at the Bat".


title: Homer Simpson

text: Homer is an "everyman" and embodies several American stereotypes of working class blue-collar men: he is crude, overweight, incompetent, dim-witted, childish, clumsy and a borderline alcoholic. Matt Groening describes him as "completely ruled by his impulses". Dan Castellaneta calls him "a dog trapped in a man's body", adding, "He's incredibly loyal – not entirely clean – but you gotta love him." In his book "Planet Simpson", author Chris Turner describes Homer as "the most American of the Simpsons" and believes that while the other Simpson family members could be changed to other nationalities, Homer is "pure American". In the book "God in the Details: American Religion in Popular Culture", the authors comment that "Homer's progress (or lack thereof) reveals a character who can do the right thing, if accidentally or begrudgingly." The book "" includes a chapter analyzing Homer's character from the perspective of Aristotelian virtue ethics. Raja Halwani writes that Homer's "love of life" is an admirable character trait, "for many people are tempted to see in Homer nothing but buffoonery and immorality. ... He is not politically correct, he is more than happy to judge others, and he certainly does not seem to be obsessed with his health. These qualities might not make Homer an admirable "person", but they do make him admirable in some ways, and, more importantly, makes us crave him and the Homer Simpsons of this world." In 2008, "Entertainment Weekly" justified designating "The Simpsons" as a television classic by stating, "we all hail Simpson patriarch Homer because his joy is as palpable as his stupidity is stunning".


title: Homer Simpson

text: In the season eight episode "Homer's Enemy" the writers decided to examine "what it would be like to actually work alongside Homer Simpson". The episode explores the possibilities of a realistic character with a strong work ethic named Frank Grimes placed alongside Homer in a work environment. In the episode, Homer is portrayed as an everyman and the embodiment of the American spirit; however, in some scenes his negative characteristics and silliness are prominently highlighted. By the end of the episode, Grimes, a hard working and persevering "real American hero", has become the villain; the viewer is intended to be pleased that Homer has emerged victorious.


title: Homer Simpson

text: In "Gilligan Unbound", author Paul Arthur Cantor states that he believes Homer's devotion to his family has added to the popularity of the character. He writes, "Homer is the distillation of pure fatherhood. ... This is why, for all his stupidity, bigotry and self-centered quality, we cannot hate Homer. He continually fails at being a good father, but he never gives up trying, and in some basic and important sense that makes him a good father." "The Sunday Times" remarked "Homer is good because, above all, he is capable of great love. When the chips are down, he always does the right thing by his children—he is never unfaithful in spite of several opportunities."


title: Homer Simpson

text: Homer Simpson is one of the most popular and influential television characters by a variety of standards. "USA Today" cited the character as being one of the "top 25 most influential people of the past 25 years" in 2007, adding that Homer "epitomized the irony and irreverence at the core of American humor". Robert Thompson, director of Syracuse University's Center for the Study of Popular Television, believes that "three centuries from now, English professors are going to be regarding Homer Simpson as one of the greatest creations in human storytelling." Animation historian Jerry Beck described Homer as one of the best animated characters, saying, "you know someone like it, or you identify with (it). That's really the key to a classic character." Homer has been described by "The Sunday Times" as "the greatest comic creation of [modern] time". The article remarked, "every age needs its great, consoling failure, its lovable, pretension-free mediocrity. And we have ours in Homer Simpson."


title: Homer Simpson

text: Despite Homer's partial embodiment of American culture, his influence has spread to other parts of the world. In 2003, Matt Groening revealed that his father, after whom Homer was named, was Canadian, and said that this made Homer himself a Canadian. The character was later made an honorary citizen of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, because Homer Groening was believed to be from there, although sources say the senior Groening was actually born in the province of Saskatchewan. In 2007, an image of Homer was painted next to the Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset, England as part of a promotion for "The Simpsons Movie". This caused outrage among local neopagans who performed "rain magic" to try to get it washed away. In 2008, a defaced Spanish euro coin was found in Avilés, Spain with the face of Homer replacing the effigy of King Juan Carlos I.


title: Homer Simpson

text: On April 9, 2009, the United States Postal Service unveiled a series of five 44-cent stamps featuring Homer and the four other members of the Simpson family. They are the first characters from a television series to receive this recognition while the show is still in production. The stamps, designed by Matt Groening, were made available for purchase on May 7, 2009.


title: Homer Simpson

text: Homer has appeared, voiced by Castellaneta, in several other television shows, including the sixth season of "American Idol" where he opened the show; "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" where he performed a special animated opening monologue for the July 24, 2007, edition; and the 2008 fundraising television special "Stand Up to Cancer" where he was shown having a colonoscopy.


title: Homer Simpson

text: On February 28, 1999, Homer Simpson was made an honorary member of the Junior Common Room of Worcester College, Oxford. Homer was granted the membership by the college's undergraduate body in the belief that ″he would benefit greatly from an Oxford education″.


title: Homer Simpson

text: Homer has also been cited in the scientific literature, in relation to low intelligence or cognitive abilities. A 2010 study from Emory University showed that the RGS14 gene appeared to be impairing the development of cognitive abilities in mice (or, rather, that mice with a disabled RGS14 gene improved their cognitive abilities), prompting the authors to dub it the "Homer Simpson gene".


title: Homer Simpson

text: Homer's main and most famous catchphrase, the annoyed grunt "D'oh!", is typically uttered when he injures himself, realizes that he has done something stupid, or when something bad has happened or is about to happen to him. During the voice recording session for a "Tracey Ullman Show" short, Homer was required to utter what was written in the script as an "annoyed grunt". Dan Castellaneta rendered it as a drawn out "d'ooooooh". This was inspired by Jimmy Finlayson, the mustachioed Scottish actor who appeared in 33 Laurel and Hardy films. Finlayson had used the term as a minced oath to stand in for the word "Damn!" Matt Groening felt that it would better suit the timing of animation if it were spoken faster. Castellaneta then shortened it to a quickly uttered "D'oh!" The first intentional use of D'oh! occurred in the Ullman short "The Krusty the Clown Show" (1989), and its first usage in the series was in the series premiere, "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire".


title: Homer Simpson

text: "D'oh!" was first added to "The New Oxford Dictionary of English" in 1998. It is defined as an interjection "used to comment on an action perceived as foolish or stupid". In 2001, "D'oh!" was added to the "Oxford English Dictionary", without the apostrophe ("Doh!"). The definition of the word is "expressing frustration at the realization that things have turned out badly or not as planned, or that one has just said or done something foolish". In 2006, "D'oh!" was placed in sixth position on TV Land's list of the 100 greatest television catchphrases. "D'oh!" is also included in "The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations". The book includes several other quotations from Homer, including "Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is never try", from "Burns' Heir" (season five, 1994) as well as "Kids are the best, Apu. You can teach them to hate the things you hate. And they practically raise themselves, what with the Internet and all", from "Eight Misbehavin' (season 11, 1999). Both quotes entered the dictionary in August 2007.


title: Homer Simpson

text: Homer's inclusion in many Simpsons publications, toys, and other merchandise is evidence of his enduring popularity. "The Homer Book", about Homer's personality and attributes, was released in 2004 and is commercially available. It has been described as "an entertaining little book for occasional reading" and was listed as one of "the most interesting books of 2004" by "The Chattanoogan". Other merchandise includes dolls, posters, figurines, bobblehead dolls, mugs, alarm clocks, jigsaw puzzles, Chia Pets, and clothing such as slippers, T-shirts, baseball caps, and boxer shorts. Homer has appeared in commercials for Coke, 1-800-COLLECT, Burger King, Butterfinger, C.C. Lemon, Church's Chicken, Domino's Pizza, Intel, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Ramada Inn, Subway and T.G.I. Friday's. In 2004, Homer starred in a MasterCard "Priceless" commercial that aired during Super Bowl XXXVIII. In 2001, Kelloggs launched a brand of cereal called "Homer's Cinnamon Donut Cereal", which was available for a limited time. In June 2009, Dutch automotive navigation systems manufacturer TomTom announced that Homer would be added to its downloadable GPS voice lineup. Homer's voice, recorded by Dan Castellaneta, features several in-character comments such as "Take the third right. We might find an ice cream truck! Mmm... ice cream."


title: Homer Simpson

text: Homer has appeared in other media relating to "The Simpsons". He has appeared in every one of "The Simpsons" video games, including the most recent, "The Simpsons Game". Homer appears as a playable character in the toys-to-life video game "Lego Dimensions", released via a "Level Pack" packaged with Homer's Car and "Taunt-o-Vision" accessories in September 2015; the pack also adds an additional level based on the episode "The Mysterious Voyage of Homer". Alongside the television series, Homer regularly appeared in issues of "Simpsons Comics", which were published from November 29, 1993, until October 17, 2018. Homer also plays a role in The Simpsons Ride, launched in 2008 at Universal Studios Florida and Hollywood.


title: Rory Stewart

text: Roderick James Nugent Stewart (born 3 January 1973) is a British academic, diplomat, author, broadcaster, former soldier and former politician. He is the president of GiveDirectly, a visiting fellow at Yale University's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs where he teaches politics and international relations, and hosts the Rest is Politics podcast with Alastair Campbell. Previously, he served as a minister in four different departments of the UK Government. He then became a Cabinet minister as Secretary of State for International Development from May to July 2019. He served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Penrith and The Border from 2010 to 2019.


title: Rory Stewart

text: Born in Hong Kong, Stewart was educated at the Dragon School and Eton College. After studying at Balliol College, Oxford, Stewart worked for Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service as a diplomat in Indonesia and as British Representative to Montenegro. He left the diplomatic service to undertake a two-year walk across Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, India and Nepal. He later wrote a best-selling book, "The Places in Between", about his experiences. He subsequently served as Deputy Governor in Maysan and Dhi Qar for the Coalition Provisional Authority following the 2003 invasion of Iraq and wrote a second book covering this period, "". In 2005, he moved to Kabul to establish and run the Turquoise Mountain Foundation. He was the Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights and the director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University from 2008 to 2010.


title: Rory Stewart

text: In 2010, Stewart was elected to the House of Commons and in 2014 he was elected chair of the Defence Select Committee. He served under David Cameron as Minister for the Environment from 2015 to 2016. He served as a minister throughout Theresa May’s government: as Minister of State for International Development, Minister of State for Africa and Minister of State for Prisons. He ultimately joined the Cabinet and National Security Council as Secretary of State for International Development. After May resigned, Stewart stood as a candidate to be Leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the 2019 leadership contest. His campaign was defined by his unorthodox use of social media and opposition to a no-deal Brexit. He stated at the beginning of his campaign that he would not serve under Boris Johnson and when Johnson became Prime Minister, in July 2019, Stewart resigned from the Cabinet.


title: Rory Stewart

text: On 3 October 2019, Stewart announced he had resigned from the Conservative Party and that he would stand down as an MP at the next general election. He initially announced as an independent candidate in the 2021 London mayoral election but withdrew on 6 May 2020 on the grounds of the election being postponed due to COVID-19. In September 2020, he became a fellow at Yale University, teaching politics and international relations. In March 2022, he launched the Rest is Politics podcast with Alastair Campbell, which has been since its launch the top politics podcast in the UK in the Apple rankings, and often the leading podcast in the UK.


title: Rory Stewart

text: Stewart was born in Hong Kong, then under British rule, the son of Brian Stewart and his wife, Sally Elizabeth Acland Nugent ("née" Rose). His family is from Broich House (built in 1770), near Crieff in Perth and Kinross, Scotland. Stewart's father, born in Edinburgh, Scotland, was a colonial official and diplomat who, in the 1970s, was reportedly a candidate to become the Chief of the UK's Secret Intelligence Service or MI6. Stewart's maternal grandfather was Jewish. His younger sister has Down syndrome.


title: Rory Stewart

text: Stewart spent his early years in South Kensington, London before his family moved to Malaysia and then back to Hong Kong. He returned to Britain for boarding school from Malaysia at the age of 8, being educated at the Dragon School, in Oxford, and Eton College. He was taught martial arts and fencing by his father in Hyde Park. As a teenager, he was a member of the Labour Party. During his gap year in 1991, he served a short service limited commission in the Black Watch for five months as second lieutenant on probation. He studied medieval history under Maurice Keen and then philosophy, politics and economics under Jonathan Barnes at Balliol College, Oxford University. While a student at Oxford, Stewart was a private tutor to Prince William and Prince Harry during the summer. He attended a single meeting of the Bullingdon Club before resigning after witnessing the behaviour of other members.


title: Rory Stewart

text: After graduating, Stewart joined the Foreign Office. In Indonesia, he served as Second Secretary, Political/Economic in the British embassy in Jakarta from 1997 to 1999, during the Asian Financial Crisis and the fall of Suharto, working on issues related to East Timor independence. He was appointed at the age of 26 as the British Representative to Montenegro in the wake of the Kosovo campaign.


title: Rory Stewart

text: Some have suggested that Stewart was an employee of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) during his time as a British Representative to Montenegro – allegedly being recruited to MI6 shortly after he graduated from Oxford University. Stewart has said that his career progression and his father's work for MI6 might "give the appearance" that he worked for MI6, but says he did not work for MI6 while a diplomat. Stewart has acknowledged that due to the Official Secrets Act, even if he had worked for MI6, he would not be able to admit it.


title: Rory Stewart

text: After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Stewart was appointed as the Coalition Provisional Authority Deputy Governorate Co-ordinator in Maysan and Deputy Governorate Co-ordinator/Senior Advisor in Dhi Qar in 2003, both of which are provinces in southern Iraq. He was posted initially to the KOSB Battlegroup then to the Light Infantry. His responsibilities included holding elections, resolving tribal disputes, and implementing development projects. He faced growing unrest and an incipient civil war from his base in a Civil-Military Co-operation (CIMIC) compound in Al Amarah, and in May 2004 was in command of his compound in Nasiriyah when it was besieged by Sadrist militia. He was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his services during this period. While Stewart initially supported the Iraq War, the international coalition's inability to achieve a more humane, prosperous state led him in retrospect to believe the invasion had been a mistake.


title: Rory Stewart

text: In 2000, Stewart took leave from the Foreign Service to walk across Asia. This journey on foot involved Stewart walking for more than eighteen months, across much of Iran, Pakistan, and the Indian and Nepali Himalayas in 2000 and 2001, finishing with a 36-day solo walk across Afghanistan in the early months of 2002. He typically walked 20–25 miles a day, staying in village houses every night. He has also walked across sections of Western New Guinea and much of the United Kingdom. Stewart was awarded the Royal Scottish Geographical Society's Livingstone medal in 2009 "in recognition of his work in Afghanistan and his travel writing, and for his distinguished contribution to geography". His subsequent travel in the United Kingdom, and his writing on geography, was recognised by the Royal Geographical Society, which awarded him the Ness Award in 2018.


title: Rory Stewart

text: His book describing his walk across Afghanistan, "The Places in Between", was a "New York Times" bestseller. "The Places in Between" was named by "The New York Times" as a "flat-out masterpiece" and listed as one of its 10 notable books of 2006. It won the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, the Spirit of Scotland award, and the Premio de Literatura de Viaje Caminos del Cid. It was short-listed for a Scottish Arts Council prize, the Guardian First Book Award and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. The book was adapted into a radio play by Benjamin Yeoh broadcast in 2007 on BBC Radio 4.


title: Rory Stewart

text: According to the "Daily Telegraph", Brad Pitt bought the rights to make a film about Stewart in 2008, with Orlando Bloom tipped to play the leading role.


title: Rory Stewart

text: His book about his 1,000-mile walk in the borderlands separating England and Scotland, also known as the Scottish Marches (in part with his father) – "The Marches: Border Walks With My Father" – became a "Sunday Times" top ten bestseller. "The Marches" was long listed for the Orwell Prize, won the Hunter Davies Lakeland Book of the Year, and was a Waterstones Book of the Month.


title: Rory Stewart

text: He has also written about theory and practice of travel writings in prefaces to Wilfred Thesiger's "Arabian Sands", Charles Doughty's "Arabia Deserta", and Robert Byron's "The Road to Oxiana".


title: Rory Stewart

text: Stewart's book, "The Prince of the Marshes: and other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq", also published as "Occupational Hazards: My Time Governing in Iraq", describes his reflections on the intervention in Iraq, based on his experiences as the Deputy Governorate Co-ordinator. The "New York Times" critic William Grimes commented that for him the "real value of the new book is Mr. Stewart's sobering picture of the difficulties involved in creating a coherent Iraqi state based on the rule of law".


title: Rory Stewart

text: Stewart's book on International Intervention "Can Intervention Work?", co-authored with Gerald Knaus was published by W.W. Norton as part of the Amnesty International Global Ethics Series in 2011. It distilled Stewart's reflections on the lessons of the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan for the practice of International Intervention.


title: Rory Stewart

text: Stewart has also written longer essays on 1920s Iraq, South Sudan and ISIS (for the "New York Review of Books"), on West Papua, counterinsurgency theory and early modern Aleppo (for the "London Review of Books"), on the politics of the centre ground (for the "New Statesman"), and on Iran and Afghanistan (for "Prospect" magazine). He appeared frequently on television and radio, including BBC Radio 4's "Desert Island Discs".


title: Rory Stewart

text: He was a columnist for "The New York Times", and also for his local constituency newspaper, the "Cumberland and Westmorland Herald", contributing a monthly column.


title: Rory Stewart

text: In January 2010, Stewart presented the BBC Two documentary miniseries "The Legacy of Lawrence of Arabia". In 2012, he wrote and presented the BBC's "", a documentary in two parts telling the story of foreign intervention by Britain, Russia and the United States in Afghanistan from the 19th century to the present day, which aired on BBC Two and which won a Scottish BAFTA. In 2014, Stewart wrote and presented a two-part documentary on BBC Two about the cross-border history of what he called "Britain's lost middleland", covering the kingdoms of Northumbria and Strathclyde and the Debatable Lands of the Scottish Marches on the Anglo-Scottish border. Its full title was "Border Country: The Story of Britain's Lost Middleland" and it investigated the rift created by Hadrian's Wall and the issues of identity and culture in a region divided by the fabricated border.


title: Rory Stewart

text: In late 2005, Stewart set up the Turquoise Mountain Foundation, in Afghanistan, a human development NGO established by King Charles III, and Hamid Karzai. For this role he relocated to Kabul for the next three years, working to restore historic buildings in the old city of Kabul, managing its finances, installing water supply, electricity, and establishing a clinic, a school and an institute for traditional crafts. Stewart stepped down as executive chairman of the Turquoise Mountain Foundation in May 2010. Stewart also served for a time on the board of governors of the International Development Research Centre of Canada.


title: Rory Stewart

text: In 2021 Stewart and his family moved to Jordan for two years to work for the Turquoise Mountain Foundation setting up a project to restore a Roman site near the Golan Heights to create employment in the area. Stewart would also be travelling to Yale University for lecture commitments.


title: Rory Stewart

text: In July 2008, Stewart was appointed as to the faculty of the John F. Kennedy School of Government as Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights at Harvard University and director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, having previously been a fellow at the Carr Center from 2004 to 2005. He left his position to campaign for Parliament. He returned to academia as a Senior Fellow at Yale University's Jackson Institute in 2020.


title: Rory Stewart

text: Stewart has frequently been called on to provide advice on Afghanistan and Iraq to policy-makers, particularly in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada. In an article in "The Daily Telegraph", he was described as an advisor on Afghan issues to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the U.S. Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke. In 2009, he appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, arguing that Obama's strategy on Afghanistan was 'trying to do the impossible'. He suggested, in an argument that he would later expand in his Ted Talk, that a heavy American military footprint would be counterproductive, alienating Afghans, and that it would be better to reduce the size of the American Army in Afghanistan. This smaller force, he suggested, would be able to handle al-Qaeda, while helping achieve the West's long-term objectives in the country. His ideas were rejected by senators, including future Secretary of State John Kerry. He also briefed Gordon Brown and David Miliband.


title: Rory Stewart

text: In September 2020, he became a fellow at Yale University's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, teaching politics, grand strategy and international relations to undergraduate and graduate students.


title: Rory Stewart

text: Stewart had considered a parliamentary career in the past but only decided to stand when, in the aftermath of the expenses scandal, David Cameron decided to "reopen the Conservative candidates' list to anybody who wants to apply". Stewart has said that his experience in Afghanistan made him a "Burkean conservative". Having never voted for the Conservatives before (though, against his will, his parents cast his proxy vote for them in the 2001 general election, when he was abroad), he joined the party in summer 2009. Stewart tried for selection for the Bracknell constituency in the 2010 general election, but the place went to Phillip Lee. Stewart was then shortlisted for the Penrith and The Border constituency and, at an open caucus, selected as the candidate on 25 October 2009. He was returned as the MP for the constituency on 6 May 2010. At the 2015 general election, Stewart almost doubled his majority in Penrith and the Border from 11,241 to 19,894, the highest majority since the seat was created. In the 2017 general election, he received 60.4% of the vote.


title: Rory Stewart

text: In July 2010, Stewart apologised after blogging about his constituents using twine to hold their trousers up. He was quoted in the "Scottish Sun" as saying that "some areas around here are pretty primitive, people holding up their trousers with bits of twine". He later said that he was making the point that Cumbria's beauty hides its "pockets of poverty". A light-hearted "Guardian" article, "In praise of ... binder twine", whilst acknowledging the "serious effort" Stewart had made by "walking hundreds of miles" to get to know his constituency, concluded that he had simply underestimated the importance of the "ubiquitous and indispensable" twine to the rural community.


title: Rory Stewart

text: Stewart was successful in securing the Cumbrian broadband pilot in 2011, and in November 2013, broadband provider EE cited the support of Government and regulatory policy in announcing that over 2,000 residents and businesses in rural Cumbria were to have access to superfast home and office broadband for the first time. In February 2015, Stewart secured more funding to continue the broadband roll-out in Cumbria. He was also part of the successful campaigns against the closure of the Penrith cinema and fire station, and helped to secure agreement and funding for disabled access at Penrith Station, and the dualling of the A66 road, and for flood defence funding for Cumbria.


title: Rory Stewart

text: Upon joining the House of Commons, Stewart was elected a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, serving until 2014. During his tenure on the committee, he was also chair of the trans-Atlantic group Le Cercle but did not declare his membership. Stewart also served as the chair of the APPG for Mountain Rescue and the APPG for Local Democracy, and was an officer of the APPG for Rural Services. He was elected chair of the Defence Select Committee in May 2014. He left these positions upon his appointment as environment minister.


title: Rory Stewart

text: His speech about hedgehogs in Parliament in 2015 was named by "The Times" and "The Daily Telegraph" as the best parliamentary speech of 2015 and described by the deputy speaker as "one of the best speeches [she] had ever heard in Parliament".


title: Rory Stewart

text: Stewart led the first backbench motion for expanding broadband and mobile coverage, securing what was then the largest number of cross-party endorsements for a backbench motion. In a report published in 2011, Stewart won support from the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee in calling for mobile phone companies to be forced to provide coverage to 98% of the population, and in 2012, his campaign achieved its goal when regulator Ofcom announced its plans for the auction of fourth generation (4G) bandwidth for mobile phone services. In March 2018, Ofcom announced that the 98% target had been met.


title: Rory Stewart

text: In January 2014, Stewart was asked by Chris Grayling, Secretary of State for Justice, to lead a Government review into the reasons why a number of British veterans become criminal offenders after returning to civilian life. The review looked at ways in which support and prevention for veterans in the justice system can be improved. Following his election to Chairman of the Defence Select Committee, Stewart handed over the lead for the review to Stephen Phillips.


title: Rory Stewart

text: In May 2014, Stewart was elected by MPs from all parties as chairman of the Defence Select Committee. He was the youngest chair of a select committee in parliamentary history, as well as the first MP of the 2010 intake to be elected to chair a committee. In this capacity, Stewart argued strongly for a more vigorous response to Russian aggression in Ukraine. The committee also argued that Britain's commitments to Iraq and Syria were "strikingly modest" and that more should be done. Under Stewart's chairmanship, the committee produced a report in favour of the proposals for a Service Complaints Ombudsman and also secured an amendment extending the powers of the Ombudsman.


title: Rory Stewart

text: In July 2014, Stewart launched Hands Across The Border, a project to construct a cairn called 'The Auld Acquaintance' as "a testament to the Union". Built by members of the public, it is close to the Scotland–England border near Gretna. During the run up to the Scottish independence referendum, Stewart said of the project: "We wanted to come up with a lasting marker of our union, something that future generations will look back at and remember, with deep gratitude, the moment we chose to stay together." The campaign received support from several notable public figures in the UK, including actress Joanna Lumley, explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes, mountaineers Alan Hinkes and Doug Scott, and historians Simon Schama and David Starkey. Approximately 100,000 stones were laid on the cairn, many with personal messages.


title: Rory Stewart

text: Following the Conservatives' return with an outright majority at the 2015 general election, Stewart was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), with responsibilities including the natural environment, national parks, floods and water, resource and environmental management, rural affairs, lead responsibility for the Environment Agency, Natural England and the Forestry Commission, and acting as the secretary of state's deputy on the Environment Council.


title: Rory Stewart

text: In July 2015, in his capacity as resource minister, he announced a review into the regulatory and enforcement barriers to growth and innovation in the waste sector. Stewart as 'floods minister' joined the National Flood Resilience Review, formed in 2016 and chaired by the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Oliver Letwin. Stewart initiated the Cumbria Floods Partnership in response to Storm Desmond, with a focus on long-term flood defence. The House of Commons cross-party Environment Audit Committee criticised the statement by Stewart that the extra £700m for flood defence was the result of a "political calculation" and that it might not be spent according to the strict value-for-money criteria currently used.


title: Rory Stewart

text: As environment minister, he introduced the 5 pence a bag plastic bag tax for England from 5 October 2015 (designed to phase out lightweight plastic bags), expected to reduce the use of personal bags take from supermarkets by up to 80% (in fact, usage reduced in England by 85%); and he was responsible for producing the first draft of the 25-year environment plan in which he emphasised, alongside biodiversity and ecosystems, the importance of human cultural features in the landscape, and particularly the conservation of small family sheep farms. As Minister responsible for the national parks, Stewart secured five years of increased funding for national parks and AONBs. He also ensured the extension of the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales National Park and supported the UNESCO World Heritage bid for the Lake District.


title: Rory Stewart

text: As floods minister, Stewart oversaw the government's response to the 2015–16 Great Britain and Ireland floods, including the post-Storm Desmond floods, including the reopening of the A591 and the bridge at Pooley Bridge in the Lake District.


title: Rory Stewart

text: After Theresa May replaced David Cameron as Prime Minister, Stewart was promoted to Minister of State for International Development – the second most senior figure in the department – responsible for the UK development programs in the Middle East and Asia, and its multilateral programs on 17 July 2016. In this role, he travelled widely, meeting in country with Sheikh Hasina the Prime-Minister of Bangladesh, Prachanda the Prime-Minister of Nepal, Ashraf Ghani the President of Afghanistan, and Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi.


title: Rory Stewart

text: In 2017, Stewart was promoted to a joint position as a Minister of State in both the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development taking over responsibility for the Foreign Office and its embassies in Africa, as well as the Department for International Development (DfID) programs in Africa. In this capacity, he visited a number of countries in Africa, and the United National General Assembly in New York City (UNGA). During these trips, he held personal meetings with President Kagame of Rwanda, President Kabila of DRC, President Lungu of Zambia, President Magufuli of Tanzania, President Kenyatta of Kenya, and President Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe. In this role, Stewart was the driving force behind the British Government's new Africa strategy and pushed for more resources to go into the Foreign Office network in Africa. His most notable trip was to Zimbabwe where he was the first foreign dignitary to be received by President Mnangagwa. His Zimbabwe policy pressed for political reform, and free and fair elections.


title: Rory Stewart

text: Stewart was appointed Minister of State for Prisons with responsibility for prisons and probation in England and Wales in January 2018. He was appointed in the aftermath of a highly critical leaked report on the state of HMP Liverpool, in which the inspector described it as the "worst prison he had ever seen" with piles of rubbish, rats, soaring violence and drug use and poor health provision. Stewart immediately visited the prison and, testifying before the Justice Select Committee, announced his determination to clean up prisons in England and Wales. This advocacy of a "back to basics" approach was recorded in "The Guardian", with Stewart writing an opinion piece in the publication, entitled "I strongly believe we can improve our prisons and make progress".


title: Rory Stewart

text: In April 2018, Stewart took the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Private Member's Bill through the House of Commons, on behalf of the government, which doubled the maximum sentences for those who attack emergency services personnel and introduced sexual assault as an aggravating factor in sentencing.


title: Rory Stewart

text: In August 2018, during an interview with "BBC Breakfast", Stewart announced the launch of the Ten Prisons Project. He argued that, despite five years of continuous rise in violence in prisons, it was possible to turn it around. Stewart argued that it could be done through improving perimeter gate security (to catch drugs) and by improving training and support of staff. The key, he said, was to get the basics right. He undertook to create a new prison officer handbook and a new course at the training college for prison officers. Stewart pledged, in the same interview, that he would resign if this project was not successful. The twelve months statistics showed a continuing positive trend when, in August 2019, the results from the Ten Prisons Project were published. These showed a 16% drop in the rate of assaults, and a 17% drop in the number of assaults, almost 10% greater than the national trend. At the same time, the percentage of positive results from random mandatory drug tests dropped by 50%.


title: Rory Stewart

text: In May 2019, Stewart was promoted to the cabinet after the dismissal of Gavin Williamson, replacing the new Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt in the Department for International Development. The position included full membership of the UK Cabinet, and the National Security Council. It also saw Stewart serve as a governor of the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the Caribbean Development Bank and the Inter-African Development Bank. He was also an alternative governor to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.


title: Rory Stewart

text: Stewart's three priorities as Secretary of State for International Development were to double the UK government's international investment in the environment and climate change, to radically increase the number of UK development staff on the ground (developing language and area expertise), and to focus on the response to Ebola. He was able within a month of taking up the role to enshrined these priorities in his new single departmental plan. He committed in the House of Commons 'to double spending on climate change prevention because the world faced a "climate cataclysm" and double "the effort that the department puts into that issue".


title: Rory Stewart

text: Concerned about the increase in Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2019, Stewart increased the UK's contribution to the WHO and Ebola programs, led international meetings to mobilise international donor support for Ebola in Paris and Geneva, working with USAID administrator Mark Green and flew to Goma, Beni and Butembo in Eastern DRC to visit the outbreak sites, and then to Kinshasa where he met with President Tshisekedi.


title: Rory Stewart

text: His other international visits took Stewart to environmental programs in Kenya (from wind turbine projects in Lake Turkana in the North to Mangrove Protection in Lamu on the East coast, and UK aid funded programmes in Jordan (holding meetings with Prime Minister Omar Razzaz).


title: Rory Stewart

text: Stewart felt that he could not serve under his fellow Old Etonian Boris Johnson, who was elected Prime Minister after the resignation of Theresa May, and so resigned from cabinet on 24 July 2019.


title: Rory Stewart

text: Stewart was a candidate in the 2019 Conservative leadership election, announcing his intention to stand in an interview in "The Times." His candidacy was not initially taken seriously, with a piece in the "New Statesman"'s diary stating that he had a single supporter: himself. As "The Guardian" noted: "his campaign benefited at the start from low expectations, and for days leading up to the first vote his tally of supporters was in single figures. When he met the threshold he looked like the insurgent because so many had assumed he would be knocked out".


title: Rory Stewart

text: Adopting an unconventional campaigning style, Stewart did not focus his attention on Westminster but, instead, went on a series of filmed walkabouts (dubbed 'RoryWalks'), which saw him take to the streets of Britain, talking to voters, to understand their priorities and concerns. These were then uploaded onto social media, with significant success.


title: Rory Stewart

text: On 29 May, Stewart admitted he had smoked opium during a wedding in Iran. Several other candidates admitted to previous illegal drug use during the election.


title: Rory Stewart

text: On 1 June, Kenneth Clarke was announced as one of Stewart's MP backers, with other supporters including David Lidington, David Gauke, Nicholas Soames, Tobias Ellwood, Gillian Keegan and Victoria Prentis. Against expectations, on 13 June he made it through the first parliamentary ballot, gaining 19 votes, two more than the elimination threshold. On 16 June, he appeared, as one of the six remaining candidates, in a televised debate on Channel 4. He was widely judged to have won the debate, with Michael Deacon writing in "The Daily Telegraph" that "If you were to judge it by the response of the studio audience, Channel 4's debate had only one winner. Rory Stewart got more rounds of applause than any other candidate – and, at the end, when each took turns to sum up, he was the only candidate to get a round of applause at all".


title: Rory Stewart

text: On 18 June 2019, he also made it through the second parliamentary ballot, with 37 votes from a threshold of 33, surpassing Home Secretary Sajid Javid by four votes; however, following a lacklustre performance in that evening's BBC debate, he polled just 27 votes in the next day's ballot and was eliminated as the last-placed candidate. It was revealed on the same day that Stewart was in talks with Michael Gove to stop Boris Johnson becoming Prime Minister. Although, in his podcast, with co-host Alastair Campbell, Stewart claimed that Gove was intentionally wasting his time to better position Boris Johnson in the leadership race.


title: Rory Stewart

text: On 3 September 2019, Stewart and 20 other Conservative MPs voted in favour of MPs taking control of the order paper, as the first step to table a bill to stop a no-deal Brexit, in the process rebelling against the Government Whip. It had been widely reported in the media that any such action would lead to a withdrawal of the Conservative whip, and all 21 were told that they had lost it, expelling them as Conservative MPs and requiring them to sit as independents. If they should decide to run for re-election in a future election, the party would block their selection as Conservative candidates. Stewart stated that he was informed of this decision by text message, while collecting his "GQ" Politician of the Year Award.


title: Rory Stewart

text: At an event on 3 October, Stewart announced he had resigned from the Conservative Party and would stand down as an MP at the next general election. He read out a letter in which a housemaster at Eton College described Boris Johnson as being guilty of "a gross failure of responsibility". The next day, Stewart confirmed his resignation on Twitter, saying: "It's been a great privilege to serve Penrith and The Border for the last ten years, so it is with sadness that I am announcing that I will be standing down."


title: Rory Stewart

text: In October 2019, Stewart announced that he was to stand as an independent in the upcoming London mayoral election against incumbent Labour mayor Sadiq Khan and Conservative candidate Shaun Bailey. He planned during his candidacy to walk through each of the 32 London boroughs. In November 2019, he appeared on BBC One's "Have I Got News for You". Labelled by Scottish newspaper, "The National", a "bizarre campaign trick", in February 2020, as a part of his campaign, he sought invitations from "Londoners to invite him into their homes and let him stay the night". The objective, he tweeted was for them to "show me the city through their eyes. I want to know your concerns and your ideas." By 14 February, "The Guardian" tweeted, "2,000 Londoners [had taken] up Rory Stewart's offer".


title: Rory Stewart

text: Stewart's use of social media later became the subject of controversy when, at a talk at the Emmanuel Centre, in the course of discussing his use of social media during the contest, he referred to an encounter in Brick Lane with three "sort of minor gangsters". Two of the men were members of an Irish rap group, Hare Squead. This drew accusations of racism from many politicians, including Dawn Butler, David Lammy and Diane Abbott. Stewart apologised the next day, tweeting "I am very sorry towards the guys and towards everyone else. I was wrong".


title: Rory Stewart

text: Initially scheduled to be held in 2020, the mayoral election was postponed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On 6 May 2020, Stewart ended his mayoralty bid, saying he could not maintain a campaign for another year against the large budgets of the Labour and Conservative campaigns. He stated the COVID-19 pandemic had made it "impossible" to campaign and that he could not ask his unpaid volunteers to continue in their roles for another year.


title: Rory Stewart

text: Stewart supported remain in the 2016 referendum on the UK's continued membership of the European Union. Following the result of the referendum, he tried to argue for what he called a "sensible, moderate deal" that could act as a compromise between Remain and Leave voters. He argued that although the referendum made it necessary to leave the EU, Britain should seek "to stay very close to Europe diplomatically and politically and economically". He was initially a prominent advocate for the Brexit withdrawal agreement negotiated by the prime minister Theresa May, arguing that the agreement respects the result of the referendum "by leaving EU political institutions...and by taking back control over immigration" while also addressing "the concerns of the more than 16 million who voted remain" and protecting the British economy.


title: Rory Stewart

text: He then became an advocate for the UK remaining in a Customs Union with the European Union, and voted with the Labour Party for a Customs Union amendment in the House of Commons. He continued to argue, following that defeat, that following the outcome of the referendum "the Customs Union option was the best available – the only way of achieving the substantial separation desired by Brexit voters while remaining close to the EU diplomatically and economically." He proposed, however, following the failure of parliament to reach any positive agreement – that the issue could be passed to a Citizens Assembly, chaired by the Archbishop of Canterbury to find a compromise on Brexit.


title: Rory Stewart

text: Although he accepted the result of the Brexit referendum, he remained opposed to the idea of a no-deal Brexit – even as a bargaining position in the negotiation with the EU. He voted against a no-deal Brexit in parliament. He was formally stripped of the Conservative whip, and expelled from the Conservative Party after voting with 20 other Conservative colleagues to try to block a no-deal Brexit.


title: Rory Stewart

text: As an MP, Stewart expressed his support for fox hunting, and was marked as a "For" voter to upkeep the traditional sport if it were voted on. He has been seen at hunt meets in his local area. He said, "I'm in favour. It's an important cultural tradition in Cumbria going back many hundreds of years, and hunts like Blencathra and Ullswater are a very important part of rural tradition. It's not something I've ever done myself but it's something I think people should have the right to do."


title: Rory Stewart

text: In 2012, Stewart married American Shoshana Clark, a former employee. They had their first child in November 2014, a son whom Stewart delivered at home in the absence of medical assistance, and their second son was born in April 2017.


title: Rory Stewart

text: Stewart lives in South Kensington, London as well as Dufton, Cumbria. He is a member of the Athenaeum Club and the Special Forces Club. He is said to be proficient in eleven languages. In 2021 Stewart and his family moved to Jordan for two years to work on a Turquoise Mountain Foundation project.


title: Rory Stewart

text: In March 2022, Stewart launched "The Rest is Politics" podcast with former Labour Party communications director Alastair Campbell. The pair discuss current news stories and reminisce about their old jobs.


title: Rory Stewart

text: Stewart also hosts the BBC Radio 4 Podcast "The Long History Of Argument" where he discusses the history of debates.


title: Planet Nine

text: Planet Nine is a hypothetical planet in the outer region of the Solar System. Its gravitational effects could explain the peculiar 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 alignments suggest that an undiscovered planet may be shepherding the orbits of the most distant known Solar System objects. Nonetheless, some astronomers question this conclusion and instead assert that the clustering of the ETNOs orbits is due to observational biases, resulting from the difficulty of discovering and tracking these objects during much of the year.


title: Planet Nine

text: Based on earlier considerations, this hypothetical super-Earth-sized planet would have had a predicted mass of five to ten times that of the Earth, and an elongated orbit 400 to 800 times as far from the Sun as the Earth. The orbit estimation was refined in 2021, resulting in a somewhat smaller semimajor axis of 380 AU. This was shortly thereafter updated to 460 AU. Konstantin Batygin and Michael E. Brown suggested that Planet Nine may be the core of a giant planet that was ejected from its original orbit by Jupiter during the genesis of the Solar System. Others proposed that the planet was captured from another star, was once a rogue planet, or that it formed on a distant orbit and was pulled into an eccentric orbit by a passing star.


title: Planet Nine

text: Although 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. The ability of these past sky surveys to detect Planet Nine was dependent on its location and characteristics. Further surveys of the remaining regions are ongoing using NEOWISE and the 8-meter Subaru Telescope. Unless Planet Nine is observed, its existence remains purely conjectural. Several alternative hypotheses have been proposed to explain the observed clustering of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs).


title: Planet Nine

text: Following 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. Clyde Tombaugh continued Lowell's search and in 1930 discovered Pluto, but it was soon determined to be too small to qualify as Lowell's Planet X. 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.


title: Planet Nine

text: Attempts to detect planets beyond Neptune by indirect means such as orbital perturbation date back to before the discovery of Pluto. Among the first was George Forbes who postulated the existence of two trans-Neptunian planets in 1880. 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 semi-major axis of 300 AU. His work is considered similar to more recent Planet Nine theories in that the planets would be responsible for a clustering of the orbits of several objects, in this case the clustering of aphelion distances of periodic comets near 100 and 300 AU. This is similar to how the aphelion distances of Jupiter-family comets cluster near its orbit.


title: Planet Nine

text: The discovery of Sedna's peculiar orbit in 2004 led to speculation that it had encountered a massive body other than one of the known planets. Sedna's orbit is detached, with a perihelion distance of 76 AU that is too large to be due to gravitational interactions with Neptune. Several authors proposed that Sedna entered this orbit after encountering a massive body such as 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. The announcement in March 2014 of the discovery of a second sednoid with a perihelion distance of 80 AU, , in a similar orbit led to renewed speculation that an unknown super-Earth remained in the distant Solar System.


title: Planet Nine

text: 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. The proposed Neptune-massed planet would be in a distant (1500 AU), eccentric (eccentricity 0.4), and inclined (inclination °) 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. An article by Gomes, Soares, and Brasser was published in 2015, detailing their arguments.


title: Planet Nine

text: In 2014, astronomers Chad Trujillo and Scott S. Sheppard noted the similarities in the orbits of Sedna and and several other ETNOs. They proposed that an unknown planet in a circular orbit between 200 and 300 AU was perturbing their orbits. Later that year, Raúl and Carlos de la Fuente Marcos argued that two massive planets in orbital resonance were necessary to produce the similarities of so many orbits, 13 known at the time. Using a larger sample of 39 ETNOs, they estimated that the nearer planet had a semi-major axis in the range 300–400 AU, a relatively low eccentricity, and an inclination of nearly 14 degrees.


title: Planet Nine

text: In early 2016, California Institute of Technology's Batygin and Brown described how the similar orbits of six ETNOs could be explained by Planet Nine and proposed a possible orbit for the planet. This hypothesis could also explain ETNOs with orbits perpendicular to the inner planets and others with extreme inclinations, and had been offered as an explanation of the tilt of the Sun's axis.


title: Planet Nine

text: Planet Nine was initially hypothesized to follow an elliptical orbit around the Sun with an eccentricity of , and its semi-major axis was estimated to be , roughly 13 to 26 times the distance from Neptune to the Sun. It would take the planet between 10,000 and 20,000 years to make one full orbit around the Sun, and its inclination to the ecliptic, the plane of the Earth's orbit, was projected to be . The aphelion, or farthest point from the Sun, would be in the general direction of the constellation of Taurus, whereas the perihelion, the nearest point to the Sun, would be in the general direction of the southerly areas of Serpens (Caput), Ophiuchus, and Libra. Brown thinks that if Planet Nine exists, a probe could reach it in as little as 20 years by using a powered slingshot trajectory around the Sun.


title: Planet Nine

text: The planet is estimated to have 5 to 10 times the mass of Earth and a radius of 2 to 4 times Earth's. Brown thinks that if Planet Nine exists, its mass is sufficient to clear its orbit of large bodies in 4.5 billion years, the age of the Solar System, and that its gravity dominates the outer edge of the Solar System, which is sufficient to make it a planet by current definitions. Astronomer Jean-Luc Margot has also stated that Planet Nine satisfies his criteria and would qualify as a planet if and when it is detected.


title: Planet Nine

text: 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. The gravity of a nearby star, or drag from the gaseous remnants of the Solar nebula, 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. The odds of this occurring has been estimated at a few percent. 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. Instead, its growth was halted early, leaving it with a lower mass than Uranus or Neptune.


title: Planet Nine

text: 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. 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.


title: Planet Nine

text: 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, or the outward drift of solids in a dissipating disk forming a narrow ring from which the planet accreted over a billion years. 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%. An extended disk would have been subject to gravitational disruption by passing stars and by mass loss due to photoevaporation while the Sun remained in the open cluster where it formed, however.


title: Planet Nine

text: 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. The wider range of possible orbits would reduce the odds of its capture in a relatively low inclination orbit to 1–2%. Amir Siraj and Avi Loeb found that the odds of the Sun capturing Planet Nine increases by a factor of 20 if the Sun once had a distant, equal-mass binary companion. 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.


title: Planet Nine

text: Planet Nine was initially proposed to explain the clustering of orbits, via a mechanism that would also explain the high perihelia of objects like Sedna. The evolution of some of these objects into perpendicular orbits was unexpected, but found to match objects previously observed. The orbits of some objects with perpendicular orbits were later found to evolve toward smaller semi-major axes when the other planets were included in simulations. Although other mechanisms have been offered for many of these peculiarities, the gravitational influence of Planet Nine is the only one that explains all four. The gravity of Planet Nine would also increase the inclinations of other objects that cross its orbit, however, which could leave the scattered disk objects, bodies orbiting beyond Neptune with semi-major axes greater than 50 AU, and short-period comets with a broader inclination distribution than is observed. Previously Planet Nine was hypothesized to be responsible for the 6 degree tilt of the Sun's axis relative to the orbits of the planets, but recent updates to its predicted orbit and mass limit this shift to ~1 degree.


title: Planet Nine

text: The clustering of the orbits of TNOs with large semi-major axes was first described by Trujillo and Sheppard, who noted similarities between the orbits of Sedna and . Without the presence of Planet Nine, these orbits should be distributed randomly, without preference for any direction. Upon further analysis, Trujillo and Sheppard observed that the arguments of perihelion of 12 TNOs with perihelia greater than and semi-major axes greater than were clustered near zero degrees, meaning that they rise through the ecliptic when they are closest to the Sun. Trujillo and Sheppard proposed that this alignment was caused by a massive unknown planet beyond Neptune via the Kozai mechanism. For objects with similar semi-major axes the Kozai mechanism would confine their arguments of perihelion to near 0 or 180 degrees. This confinement allows objects with eccentric and inclined orbits to avoid close approaches to the planet because they would cross the plane of the planet's orbit at their closest and farthest points from the Sun, and cross the planet's orbit when they are well above or below its orbit. Trujillo and Sheppard's hypothesis about how the objects would be aligned by the Kozai mechanism has been supplanted by further analysis and evidence.


title: Planet Nine

text: Batygin and Brown, looking to refute the mechanism proposed by Trujillo and Sheppard, also examined the orbits of the TNOs with large semi-major axes. After eliminating the objects in Trujillo and Sheppard's original analysis that were unstable due to close approaches to Neptune or were affected by Neptune's mean-motion resonances, Batygin and Brown determined that the arguments of perihelion for the remaining six objects (Sedna, , , , , and ) were clustered around . This finding did not agree with how the Kozai mechanism would tend to align orbits with arguments of perihelion at 0° or 180°.


title: Planet Nine

text: Batygin and Brown also found that the orbits of the six ETNOs with semi-major axis greater than 250 AU and perihelia beyond 30 AU (Sedna, , , , , and ) were aligned in space with their perihelia in roughly the same direction, resulting in a clustering of their longitudes of perihelion, the location where they make their closest approaches to the Sun. The orbits of the six objects were also tilted with respect to that of the ecliptic and approximately coplanar, producing a clustering of their longitudes of ascending nodes, the directions where they each rise through the ecliptic. They determined that there was only a 0.007% likelihood that this combination of alignments was due to chance. These six objects had been discovered by six different surveys on six telescopes. That made it less likely that the clumping might be due to an observation bias such as pointing a telescope at a particular part of the sky. The observed clustering should be smeared out in a few hundred million years due to the locations of the perihelia and the ascending nodes changing, or precessing, at differing rates due to their varied semi-major axes and eccentricities. \frac{1}{(1-e^2)^2}\sum_{k=5}^8 \frac{m_k a_k^2}{M a^2}cos^2(i)</math>


title: Planet Nine

text: where formula_1 are the masses and semi-major axes of the planets Jupiter through Neptune.}} This indicates that the clustering could not be due to an event in the distant past, for example a passing star, and is most likely maintained by the gravitational field of an object orbiting the Sun.


title: Planet Nine

text: Two of the six objects ( and ) also have very similar orbits and spectra. This has led to the suggestion that they were a binary object disrupted near aphelion during an encounter with a distant object. The disruption of a binary would require a relatively close encounter, which becomes less likely at large distances from the Sun.


title: Planet Nine

text: In a later article Trujillo and Sheppard noted a correlation between the longitude of perihelion and the argument of perihelion of the TNOs with semi-major axes greater than 150 AU. Those with a longitude of perihelion of 0–120° have arguments of perihelion between 280 and 360°, and those with longitude of perihelion between ° and ° have arguments of perihelion between ° and °. The statistical significance of this correlation was 99.99%. They suggested that the correlation is due to the orbits of these objects avoiding close approaches to a massive planet by passing above or below its orbit.


title: Planet Nine

text: A 2017 article by Carlos and Raúl de la Fuente Marcos noted that distribution of the distances to the ascending nodes of the ETNOs, and those of centaurs and comets with large semi-major axes, may be bimodal. They suggest it is due to the ETNOs avoiding close approaches to a planet with a semi-major axis of 300–400 AU. With more data (40 objects), the distribution of mutual nodal distances of the ETNOs shows a statistically significant asymmetry between the shortest mutual ascending and descending nodal distances that may not be due to observational bias but likely the result of external perturbations.


title: Planet Nine

text: The clustering of the orbits of ETNOs and raising of their perihelia is reproduced in simulations that include Planet Nine. In simulations conducted by Batygin and Brown, swarms of scattered disk objects with semi-major axes up to 550 AU that began with random orientations were sculpted into roughly collinear and coplanar groups of spatially confined orbits by a massive distant planet in a highly eccentric orbit. This left most of the objects' perihelia pointed in similar directions and the objects' orbits with similar tilts. Many of these objects entered high-perihelion orbits like Sedna and, unexpectedly, some entered perpendicular orbits that Batygin and Brown later noticed had been previously observed.


title: Planet Nine

text: In their original analysis Batygin and Brown found that the distribution of the orbits of the first six ETNOs was best reproduced in simulations using a 10 Earth mass planet in the following orbit:


title: Planet Nine

text: These parameters for Planet Nine produce different simulated effects on TNOs. Objects with semi-major axis greater than 250 AU are strongly anti-aligned with Planet Nine, with perihelia opposite Planet Nine's perihelion. Objects with semi-major axes between 150 AU and 250 AU are weakly aligned with Planet Nine, with perihelia in the same direction as Planet Nine's perihelion. Little effect is found on objects with semi-major axes less than 150 AU. The simulations also revealed that objects with semi-major axis greater than could have stable, aligned orbits if they had lower eccentricities. These objects have yet to be observed.


title: Planet Nine

text: Other possible orbits for Planet Nine were also examined, with semi-major axes between and , eccentricities up to 0.8, and a wide range of inclinations. These orbits yield varied results. Batygin and Brown found that orbits of the ETNOs were more likely to have similar tilts if Planet Nine had a higher inclination, but anti-alignment also decreased. Simulations by Becker et al. showed that their orbits were more stable if Planet Nine had a smaller eccentricity, but that anti-alignment was more likely at higher eccentricities. Lawler et al. found that the population captured in orbital resonances with Planet Nine was smaller if it had a circular orbit, and that fewer objects reached high inclination orbits. Investigations by Cáceres et al. showed that the orbits of the ETNOs were better aligned if Planet Nine had a lower perihelion orbit, but its perihelion would need to be higher than 90 AU. Later investigations by Batygin et al. found that higher eccentricity orbits reduced the average tilts of the ETNOs orbits. While there are many possible combinations of orbital parameters and masses for Planet Nine, none of the alternative simulations were better at predicting the observed alignment the original ETNOs. The discovery of additional distant Solar System objects would allow astronomers to make more accurate predictions about the orbit of the hypothesized planet. These may also provide further support for, or refutation of, the Planet Nine hypothesis.


title: Planet Nine

text: Simulations that included the migration of giant planets resulted in a weaker alignment of the ETNOs orbits. The direction of alignment also switched, from more aligned to anti-aligned with increasing semi-major axis, and from anti-aligned to aligned with increasing perihelion distance. The latter would result in the sednoids' orbits being oriented opposite most of the other ETNOs.


title: Planet Nine

text: Planet Nine modifies the orbits of ETNOs via a combination of effects. On very long timescales Planet Nine exerts a torque on the orbits of the ETNOs that varies with the alignment of their orbits with Planet Nine's. The resulting exchanges of angular momentum cause the perihelia to rise, placing them in Sedna-like orbits, and later fall, returning them to their original orbits after several hundred million years. The motion of their directions of perihelion also reverses when their eccentricities are small, keeping the objects anti-aligned, see blue curves on diagram, or aligned, red curves. On shorter timescales mean-motion resonances with Planet Nine provides phase protection, which stabilizes their orbits by slightly altering the objects' semi-major axes, keeping their orbits synchronized with Planet Nine's and preventing close approaches. The gravity of Neptune and the other giant planets, and the inclination of Planet Nine's orbit, weaken this protection. This results in a chaotic variation of semi-major axes as objects hop between resonances, including high-order resonances such as 27:17, on million-year timescales. The mean-motion resonances may not be necessary for the survival of ETNOs if they and Planet Nine are both on inclined orbits. The orbital poles of the objects precess around, or circle, the pole of the Solar System's Laplace plane. At large semi-major axes the Laplace plane is warped toward the plane of Planet Nine's orbit. This causes orbital poles of the ETNOs on average to be tilted toward one side and their longitudes of ascending nodes to be clustered.


title: Planet Nine

text: Planet Nine can deliver ETNOs into orbits roughly perpendicular to the ecliptic. Several objects with high inclinations, greater than 50°, and large semi-major axes, above 250 AU, have been observed. These orbits are produced when some low inclination ETNOs enter a secular resonance with Planet Nine upon reaching low eccentricity orbits. The resonance causes their eccentricities and inclinations to increase, delivering the eTNOs into perpendicular orbits with low perihelia where they are more readily observed. The ETNOs then evolve into retrograde orbits with lower eccentricities, after which they pass through a second phase of high eccentricity perpendicular orbits, before returning to low eccentricity and inclination orbits. The secular resonance with Planet Nine involves a linear combination of the orbit's arguments and longitudes of perihelion: Δϖ – 2ω. Unlike the Kozai mechanism this resonance causes objects to reach their maximum eccentricities when in nearly perpendicular orbits. In simulations conducted by Batygin and Morbidelli this evolution was relatively common, with 38% of stable objects undergoing it at least once. The arguments of perihelion of these objects are clustered near or opposite Planet Nine's and their longitudes of ascending node are clustered around 90° in either direction from Planet Nine's when they reach low perihelia. This is in rough agreement with observations with the differences attributed to distant encounters with the known giant planets.


title: Planet Nine

text: A population of high-inclination TNOs with semi-major axes less than 100 AU may be generated by the combined effects of Planet Nine and the other giant planets. The ETNOs that enter perpendicular orbits have perihelia low enough for their orbits to intersect those of Neptune or the other giant planets. An encounter with one of these planets can lower an ETNO's semi-major axis to below 100 AU, where the object's orbits is no longer controlled by Planet Nine, leaving it in an orbit like . The predicted orbital distribution of the longest lived of these objects is nonuniform. Most would have orbits with perihelia ranging from 5 AU to 35 AU and inclinations below 110°; beyond a gap with few objects are would be others with inclinations near 150° and perihelia near 10 AU. Previously it was proposed that these objects originated in the Oort Cloud, a theoretical cloud of icy planetesimals surrounding the Sun at distances of 2,000 to 200,000 AU. In simulations without Planet Nine an insufficient number are produced from the Oort cloud relative to observations, however. A few of the high-inclination TNOs may become retrograde Jupiter Trojans.


title: Planet Nine

text: Planet Nine would alter the source regions and the inclination distribution of comets. In simulations of the migration of the giant planets described by the Nice model fewer objects are captured in the Oort cloud when Planet Nine is included. Other objects would be captured in a cloud of objects dynamically controlled by Planet Nine. This Planet Nine cloud, made up of the ETNOs and the perpendicular objects, would extend from semi-major axes of 200 AU to 3000 AU and contain roughly 0.3–0.4 Earth masses. When the perihelia of objects in the Planet Nine cloud drop low enough for them to encounter the other planets some would be scattered into orbits that enter the inner Solar System where they could be observed as comets. If Planet Nine exists these would make up roughly one third of the Halley-type comets. Interactions with Planet Nine would also increase the inclinations of the scattered disk objects that cross its orbit. This could result in more with moderate inclinations of 15–30 degrees than are observed. The inclinations of the Jupiter-family comets derived from that population would also have a broader inclination distribution than is observed. Recent estimates of a smaller mass and eccentricity for Planet Nine would reduce its effect on these inclinations.


title: Planet Nine

text: In February 2019, the total of ETNOs that fit the original hypothesis of having semi-major axis of over 250 AU had increased to 14 objects. The orbit parameters for Planet Nine favored by Batygin and Brown after an analysis using these objects were:


title: Planet Nine

text: In August 2021, Batygin and Brown reanalyzed the data related to ETNO observations while accounting for observational biases, they found that observations were more likely in some directions than others. They stated that the orbital clustering observed "remains significant at a 99.6% confidence level." Combining observational biases with numerical simulations, they predicted the characteristics of Planet Nine:


title: Planet Nine

text: Batygin was cautious in interpreting the results of the simulation developed for his and Brown's research article, saying, "Until Planet Nine is caught on camera it does not count as being real. All we have now is an echo." In 2016, Brown put the odds for the existence of Planet Nine at about 90%. Greg Laughlin, one of the few researchers who knew in advance about this article, gives an estimate of 68.3%. Other skeptical scientists demand more data in terms of additional KBOs to be analyzed or final evidence through photographic confirmation. Brown, though conceding the skeptics' point, still thinks that there is enough data to mount a search for a new planet.


title: Planet Nine

text: The Planet Nine hypothesis is supported by several astronomers and academics. In January 2016 Jim Green, director of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said, "the evidence is stronger now than it's been before". But Green also cautioned about the possibility of other explanations for the observed motion of distant ETNOs and, quoting Carl Sagan, he said, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Tom Levenson concluded that, for now, Planet Nine seems the only satisfactory explanation for everything now known about the outer regions of the Solar System. Astronomer Alessandro Morbidelli, who reviewed the research article for "The Astronomical Journal", concurred, saying, "I don't see any alternative explanation to that offered by Batygin and Brown."


title: Planet Nine

text: Astronomer Renu Malhotra remains agnostic about Planet Nine, but noted that she and her colleagues have found that the orbits of ETNOs seem tilted in a way that is difficult to otherwise explain. "The amount of warp we see is just crazy," she said. "To me, it's the most intriguing evidence for Planet Nine I've run across so far."