Researchers claim to have discovered a new Earth-size planet in the Kuiper Belt, just behind Neptune and estimate it to be much larger than previous estimates.
Researchers investigated the Kuiper belt, which was named after Dutch-American astronomer Gerard Kuiper, who proposed its existence in 1951.
The research, published in the Astronomical Journal, indicated an object within the Kuiper Belt with “unusual” properties, such as gravitational influence over other objects, indicating its planetary status.
The Kuiper belt is a doughnut-shaped ring of icy objects left over from the creation of the sun’s planets billions of years ago. Because of its remote location, the scientists were unable to reach it.
Scientists wrote in their report: “We predict the existence of an Earth-like planet. It is plausible that a primordial planetary body could survive in the distant Kuiper Belt as a Kuiper Belt planet, as many such bodies existed in the early solar system.”
Previously, researchers indicated that there was an earth-like planet lurking at the end of our solar system; however, scientists have now proposed that there is a more massive body than previously anticipated, at a much closer distance from our planet.
If proven correct, the mass of this new planet would be 1.5 to 3 times that of Earth, at 500 times the distance between our home and the sun.
In July, scientists predicted that Jupiter and Uranus-sized planets could be lurking on the outskirts of our solar system.
Scientists predict that the planet will be much farther away than planet X — those planets that exist beyond Neptune.
According to the researchers, such a planet could be trapped in the Oort Cloud, which is a shell theorized by astronomers to mark the border of the sun’s and associated satellites’ gravitational pull.
According to experts, there may be more interstellar objects on this edge of the Solar System than previously thought.
Scientists assessed how solar systems tend to throw off large planets, as well as how a planetary system could catch one of these planets, using complex computer simulations.
According to astronomers, “this is more likely to happen when such a planet drifts close to a star system’s outer edge Oort cloud.”
Researchers estimated that “one in every 200-3000 stars could host an Oort cloud planet.”
“If the Solar System’s dynamical instability happened after birth cluster dissolution, there is an about 7% chance that an ice giant was captured in the Sun’s Oort cloud,” scientists wrote in the study.
Experts proposed a ninth planet in 2020 research, much more centrally within our system before Jupiter pushed it.
Most people consider Pluto to be the ninth planet, but it was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006, when scientists realised how many planetary bodies similar to it — with the likes of other TNOs — exist.