The Earth could have a ‘twin’

This hypothetical ninth planet would have a mass of 1.5 to 3 times that of Earth and an inclination in its orbit of approximately 30 degrees.

Japanese astrophysicists have found possible evidence of a planet, slightly larger than Earth, residing in the Kuiper Belt. This belt is a circumstellar disk composed of objects that orbit the Sun beyond the orbit of Neptune, which is 30 AU (astronomical unit, or average distance from the Earth to the Sun).

strange behaviors

Researchers found that some of the Kuiper Belt objects – asteroids, space rocks, comets and other small chunks of ice – behave in a way that suggests there is a small planet among them. The orbit of this hypothetical ninth planet It would be located approximately 250 to 500 AU from the Sunlong before the outer edge of the solar system.

In particular, they observed that some of these trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) had orbits that behaved strangely, suggesting that they are being influenced by the gravitational pull of an object larger than typical TNOs. Additionally, many of these objects had a highly inclined orbit.

The computer simulations they carried out showed that the most likely explanation for their observations was the existence of a planet in the Kuiper belt. with a mass of 1.5 to 3 times that of the Earth and an inclination in its orbit of approximately 30 degrees. The results of this study were recently published in The Astronomical Journal.