Is there a 10th planet in the solar system? understand the discovery x1m41

More than a year after the anúncio of the possible 9th planet of the solar system, scientists at the University of Arizona, USA, think there is a 10th planet orbiting the Sun. It is an even bigger mystery than planet number 9, it would orbit the sun after Neptune and would be the same size, with a mass 10 times that of Earth. But a pair of researchers are confident that the newest member of the group exists. And the secret to it all is the Kuiper Belt. 456i57

O solar system there were only six planets discovered until the 18th century, when the telescope was invented. In 1781, observers spotted Uranus orbiting even further than Saturn. Later, based on a disturbance of the movement of the seventh planet, researchers found Neptune. Now, it looks like the bill might increase. There may, after all, be a ninth and even a tenth planet around the sun – and none of them is Pluto.

The main evidence of the 10th planet is the supposed influence it would have on the Kuiper Belt, located at a distance from Earth 50 times greater than that of our planet from the sun – or 50 astronomical units (AU). Erratic movement of part of the belt bodies indicates that there may be something else exerting gravity on them. And that “something more”, you guessed it, would be precisely the 10th planet.

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What is most impressive about the possible discovery is the size of the planet. To deflect bodies from the Kuiper Belt, the new world would have to be similar to Mars. And that, say scientists who reject the idea, would make the planet visible through telescopes. University of Arizona researchers Kathryn Volk and Renu Malhotra have yet to see the supposed planet, but they are confident it exists.

The doubt about the 10th planet is also due to the comparison with the 9th. Also called Planet X, the object announced last year would be much larger, but with such a great distance from the sun, of 700 AU, that its late discovery is understandable. The planet would take no less than 15 years to go around the Sun, a very long time for a human scale.

Planet 10, on the other hand, would be much closer, between 30 and 55 AU. For the s to add up, the body would have to be big enough to sway the Kuiper Belt. But how did a planet the size of Mars go unnoticed until today?

Volk explains:

If the object is the size of Mars it is very large, which would suggest that it would likely have been dispersed by planetary motions. It would have to be a very big chance for this not to be a real effect. We think there is a real signal there and that implies an additional planet.

The only certainty for now is that the Solar system must even have more planets. At least one of the two candidates appears to exist, and the findings are expected to rewrite science textbooks for years to come. That's if Pluto is indeed kept among the dwarf planets. Otherwise, in a short time, the Earth will be able to compose a system of up to 11 planets around the Sun.