New simulations of the creation of the solar system suggest that there could be an undiscovered planet the size of Earth or Mars orbiting beyond Neptune. Furthermore, such a planet may have been expelled from the outer regions of the solar system by gas giants .
The new study has been published in the Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics . The authors have been led by Bertt Gladman, from the University of British Columba, and Kathryn Volk, from the Lunar and Planetary Institute.
Planet 9
The researchers argue that the natural evolution of our solar system is unlikely to have four gas giants and then nothing more than dwarf planets. Logic suggests that there should be some planets of other sizes, and their simulations support this hypothesis. This world that should exist is known colloquially as Planet 9 or Planet X.
Adding another planet the size of Earth or Mars to the outer solar system, perhaps between two of the gas giants, produces a more accurate model. They conclude that if such a planet exists on the outer edges of the solar system, new telescopes under construction could detect it and thus confirm their theory .
It was in 2016 when scientists Michael Brown and Konstantin Batygin published a study in which they pointed out that in the Kuiper belt the icy bodies do not move randomly but are clustered, sufficient indications to suspect that there is a ninth planet in our System Solar that affects the displacement of these bodies thanks to its gravitational force.