Scientists began to search for the tenth planet in the solar system

Last year, we learned that the ninth planet could be hiding in the outer boundaries of our solar system. But now scientists began to talk about the fact that there may be two of them.

Discovered anomalies

Cat Wolf and Rena Malhotra of the Lunar Planetary Laboratory of the University of Arizona conducted a study, the results of which will be published in the Astrophysical Journal. In it, scientists tracked the movement of cosmic rocks in the Kuiper belt - the area beyond the orbit of Neptune. The motion of some of these bodies suggests that some invisible planet can affect their orbits.

"The most likely explanation for the results is the existence of some invisible mass," said Cat Wolf, who is the lead author of the study.

What we know about the hypothetical tenth planet

By mass, this hypothetical tenth planet can be something average between Earth and Mars. It is also assumed that it should be closer to the Sun than the ninth planet. Scientists have calculated that the orbit of the hypothetical tenth planet is located about 60 times farther from the Sun than the Earth (that is, at a distance of 60 AU, or astronomical units). The ninth planet is believed to be located at a distance of 500 to 700 AU.

Scientists began to talk about the existence of the tenth planet after studying 600 objects of the Kuiper belt. Some of them seem to have a "deformed" orbit that tilts them eight degrees to the orbital plane of the main planets of the solar system.

According to the researchers, the best way to describe this deformation is to assume the existence of some unknown planet. At the same time, the ninth planet, whose mass is supposedly 10 times the mass of the Earth, that is, about half the mass of Neptune, can not explain the anomaly detected.

The ninth planet, according to scientists, is too far away to influence these Kuiper belt objects. The tenth planet, of course, should be no more than 100 AU in order to significantly affect the Kuiper Belt objects in this range.

Criticism of the study

Of course, this does not mean that the tenth planet exists, as some scientists have stated. For example, Alessandro Morbidelli from the Observatory on the Côte d'Azur in Nice (France) doubts that such a close and bright planet could remain unnoticed until this time.

However, the scientists who conducted this study say that we have not yet discovered the tenth planet, because it can be located in the dense central part of the Milky Way. If you look from the Earth, in this region you can observe a lot of stars that make it difficult to visualize it.

Alternative explanation

But there is one more explanation for the anomaly found. The deformation of the orbit of some objects of the Kuiper belt can be explained by the influence of the passing "nearby" star. Nevertheless, she should have approached the Kuiper belt at some point from the last 10 million years, which seems unlikely.

It is assumed that the solar system can hide many unknown worlds. The tenth planet, like the ninth, may be just an insignificant part of the mystery, which we just have to study.