There may be another world lurking between the orbital lines of our solar system.
Astronomers in Japan have published their theory of an “Earth-like planet,” dubbed Planet Nine, that’s hiding in plain sight just a few billion miles behind Neptune.
Published last month in the Astronomical Journal, researchers Patryk Sofia Lykawka and Takashi Ito, of Japan’s Kindai University and the country’s National Astronomical Observatory, respectively, peered deep into the Kuiper Belt to search for signs of planetary bodies.
The Kuiper Belt is a massive ring composed of interstellar objects such as dwarf planets, asteroids, carbon masses and icy volatile elements like methane and ammonia. The celestial scrapyard sits just past Neptune’s orbit and circles the sun like anything else in our solar system.
Lykawka and Ito’s findings point to another significant object within the Kuiper Belt with “peculiar” properties, such as gravitational influence over other objects, to suggest its planetary status.
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“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,” they wrote in their report, according to Earth.com.
While some astronomers remain unconvinced that such a planet exists, this new work isn’t the first to posit the existence of a ninth planet in our cosmic community.
Prior research has led to similar theories of an extra planet in the far reaches of our solar system, with Lykawka and Ito indicating a much more massive body than previously proposed, and at a much shorter distance from where we sit.
Source: https://nypost.com/2023/09/04/earth-like-planet-nine-could-be-hiding-in-our-solar-system/