A mysterious Mars-sized planet may be hiding at the edge of our solar system

By Sarah Kaplan / The Washington Post
Published: Sunday, July 2nd, 2017 at 6:25pm
Updated: Sunday, July 2nd, 2017 at 6:30pm
...
This is not the proposed “Planet Nine,” a ginormous body that Caltech scientists believe could be tugging at the orbits of the solar system’s most distant inhabitants. And it’s not Pluto. (Sorry Pluto, you still don’t count.)

Instead, University of Arizona astronomers Kat Volk and Renu Malhotra say it’s a Mars-sized body in the Kuiper belt, a swarm of small icy objects that extends beyond the orbit of Pluto. If both the Arizona and Caltech researchers are right, then these proposed bodies could bring the total number of planets in our solar system to 10.

Volk and Malhotra haven’t seen their new planet, but they say they can sense its presence. In a new paper due to be published in the Astronomical Journal, they describe an odd distortion in the orbits of objects in the outer part of the Kuiper belt, ones that are between 50 and 80 AU away (AU stands for astronomical unit, or the distance from the sun to Earth, about 92 million miles).
...
“It’s significant,” Volk said. “And the most likely explanation is this object on the outer solar system.”

If there is a planet out there with roughly the same mass as Mars, its gravity could pull on the orbits of small KBOs, dragging them out of the “invariable plane” that Earth, Jupiter and the rest of the planets inhabit.
...

www.abqjournal.com...

So it seems that, like I have mentioned in this thread that there are at least 2 more planets in the solar system. This particular planet is not planet 9, as planet 9 would be found in the Oort Cloud. This planet, named planet 10 for now, is found in the Kuiper belt.



Caltech scientists have not been able to see this planet, but we can feel it's presence as it's gravity is causing "an odd distortion in the orbits of objects in the outer part of the Kuiper belt, ones that are between 50 and 80 AU away (AU stands for astronomical unit, or the distance from the sun to Earth, about 92 million miles)."

As the article states:

...
For their study, Volk and Malhotra examined the orbits of about 600 KBOs. Scientists know of roughly 2,000 KBOs right now, but they believe there may be as many 100,000 of significant size.

www.abqjournal.com...

Like I have been stating, over and over, we will soon find out that our soalr system has a binary companion. A failed star that is keeping planet 9, and other objects that are ETNOs in their long elongated orbits.

The Caltech scientists are stating that there is a 1% -2% chance that this is a fluke in the data. This means that the planet most probably does exist.





These are exciting times we are living. Despite all the horrors we are also witnessing/hearing. At least this news is not gloomy, for now.

Volk and Malhotra haven’t seen their new planet, but they say they can sense its presence.

What..
It would be fairly easy to calculate its location with the gravity abnormalities..
And the idea its just in our own backyard.
I have a telescope they can borrow.

a Mars sized object...of ice & gravel?

I would think that the 2 instances in the last 4 years where scientists have detected the passing of a Gravity Wave likely caused by a Super Nova somewhere in the Cosmos... would be enough Space Distortion to affect the field of icy covered pebbles making up the region of space known as the Kuiper belt

You know, it seems that when they send a satellite out to see the solar system, they always steer it towards the planets. Now the solar system field is actually like a donut, if you wanted to exit the solar system quickly without all that debris it seems it would be easier to exit the other way, straight up instead of through all the planets and debris. That magnetic donut would be closest in the polar region of the sun I would think.

Maybe these people have been looking in the wrong direction to get a view of the solar system, it takes many moons to get outside the other way. Once outside, the satellite might be able to travel faster. What do you guys think about this idea.

Confusingly enough, if you use the Roman numerals for these new planets (if they exist), Planet 10 is actually Planet X.

Who is to say that something past pluto is the edge of our solar system?

If our star was a part of a binary or even trinary or quadruple system, and there are bigger ones as well, then our solar system could be a lot more massive than we're aware of.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Neat. What is currently defined as a planet is sort of whack anyway. We have several moons already found in our solar system that are far more interesting than most of the defined planets.

Future generations may have better reasons to spend time and resources on planet hunting in the outer solar system but for now we have much bigger fish to fry. Baby steps.

I thought the failed part of the binary was supposed to be Jupiter, maybe that's old hat now.

What if......its not a planet...... and its a huge mothership?
And its full if demonic aliens.......
By the time it gets here, WWIII will be done and they will be released on man kind to eat us....
DUN DUN DUN

a reply to: rickymouse

Good point! Maybe it's an economical issue? They'd rather have probes being sent closer to the interesting stuff than waste time, effort and cash going into nothingness.

ETA: I don't know if there is any physical factors for not going that direction - sending a probe at an angle that's perpendicular to the solar system donut

... keen to know

originally posted by: xSEEKxNxSTRIKEx
What if......its not a planet...... and its a huge mothership?

And its full if demonic aliens.......

By the time it gets here, WWIII will be done and they will be released on man kind to eat us....

DUN DUN DUN

Been watching a little too much Sci-fi over the years?

originally posted by: rickymouse

originally posted by: xSEEKxNxSTRIKEx
What if......its not a planet...... and its a huge mothership?

And its full if demonic aliens.......

By the time it gets here, WWIII will be done and they will be released on man kind to eat us....

DUN DUN DUN

Been watching a little too much Sci-fi over the years?

"That's no moon..."

I'm just a little sceptical here. Wouldn't this have been detected years ago? What would have been preventing that?

originally posted by: MrCrow

originally posted by: rickymouse

originally posted by: xSEEKxNxSTRIKEx
What if......its not a planet...... and its a huge mothership?

And its full if demonic aliens.......

By the time it gets here, WWIII will be done and they will be released on man kind to eat us....

DUN DUN DUN

Been watching a little too much Sci-fi over the years?

"That's no moon..."

I'm just a little sceptical here. Wouldn't this have been detected years ago? What would have been preventing that?

Consensus of the time can block detection of things that are real. If the scientists believe they have found all the planets then they will try to protect their beliefs. That is one of the major flaws of human nature, people are blinded by the beliefs they have and the knowledge they hold.

a reply to: rickymouse

The reason for that is that the examination of the planets in the solar system is the priority, and getting outside the solar system is just a bonus when it happens.

We have no reason to believe that there is anything compellingly interesting 'above or below' the solar system, in terms of something we could feasibly reach and examine. So really, you'd be firing off a deep space probe with no expectation of any useful information coming back.

This would be difficult to obtain funding for, difficult to justify, and when it didn't yield any worthwhile results it would just earn criticism.

We know where the planets are (well, most of them, it seems!) and we want to learn more about them. Seems like a no-brainer to NASA.

originally posted by: audubon
a reply to: rickymouse

The reason for that is that the examination of the planets in the solar system is the priority, and getting outside the solar system is just a bonus when it happens.

We have no reason to believe that there is anything compellingly interesting 'above or below' the solar system, in terms of something we could feasibly reach and examine. So really, you'd be firing off a deep space probe with no expectation of any useful information coming back.

This would be difficult to obtain funding for, difficult to justify, and when it didn't yield any worthwhile results it would just earn criticism.

We know where the planets are (well, most of them, it seems!) and we want to learn more about them. Seems like a no-brainer to NASA.

From above or below the solar plane, you can see everything better that is in the plane. You could do better measurements of how things work. You could measure the distortions of the orbits better. You could clarify what was going on and possibly make discoveries never even thought of existing. There is a lot more to learn from looking at things from a different angle.

Hmmm.

again i am very skeptical of this, this other planet stuff has been going since the start of the 20 century,so i dont think so

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Nature creates the most efficient shape for an object to exist and evolve... Planets...stars travel with immense speed through the universe... What shape would be best for a spaceship the size of a planet?

lolll in old mesopothemia they already knew about it thousends years ago...just take there writing seriously....!

originally posted by: rickymouse

originally posted by: MrCrow

originally posted by: rickymouse

originally posted by: xSEEKxNxSTRIKEx
What if......its not a planet...... and its a huge mothership?

And its full if demonic aliens.......

By the time it gets here, WWIII will be done and they will be released on man kind to eat us....

DUN DUN DUN

Been watching a little too much Sci-fi over the years?

"That's no moon..."

I'm just a little sceptical here. Wouldn't this have been detected years ago? What would have been preventing that?

Consensus of the time can block detection of things that are real. If the scientists believe they have found all the planets then they will try to protect their beliefs. That is one of the major flaws of human nature, people are blinded by the beliefs they have and the knowledge they hold.

Hmmm. The only problem with that logic is that the most prolific planet hunters -- such as Mike Brown of Caltech, whose discovery (along with colleagues) of the whole class of Kuiper belt "dwarf planet" objects such as Eris, Sedna, Hauhea, etc was what caused Pluto to be demoted -- are very actively searching for additional planets.

In fact, Mike Brown and colleague Konstantin Batygin have their own "Ninth Planet" (separate from the one hypothesized in the OP) for which they have found circumstantial evidence.

Brown is just one of a large number of mainstream astronomers who are actively searching for additional planets in our solar system. Brown himself has been doing this for about 20 years.

I've read and heard interviews of Brown, and he is very eagerly and actively searching for his hypothesized Planet Nine because he says there are several other teams trying to do the same, and he does not want to get beat.

It's a major branch of astronomy.