Astronomers have been suspecting, or at least suggesting, the existence of one, and possibly several, distant planets orbiting the Sun for several years now. However, our ground-based telescopes are unable to see these objects through the dense ring of dust and rocks that surrounds the inner boundaries of our system. This ring has an official name - Kuiper Belt.
The results of new observations, published in the latest issue of the Astronomical Journal, suggest that an unknown and still invisible planetary mass object may drift at the borders of the solar system. This mysterious space body, as scientists write on the pages of the journal, controls the peculiarity of the orbits and behavior of some Kuiper belt objects left after the final formation of the solar system.
Apparently, at least judging from the illustration below, it is really difficult to see what actually lies behind the Kuiper belt.
Astronomers Kat Wolf and Renu Malhotra of the University of Arizona's Lunar Planetary Laboratory report that they are interested in the tilt of the axis of some Kuiper belt objects, which is different from all other objects within the solar system. According to the researchers, the reason for this discrepancy may be a certain planetary body the size of Mars.
“The only reasonable explanation for the phenomenon of the axis tilt of the objects we observe, as our results show, may be the presence of some kind of mass invisible to our eyes. According to our calculations, something with the mass of the planet Mars changes the angle of inclination of some objects in the Kuiper belt,”says Wolf.
Even if it is a planet, it is invisible in our telescopes due to the strong density of the Kuiper belt. This planetary object hints about its existence by its influence on the most distant objects of the belt
Promotional video:
To come to such conclusions, scientists performed calculations and analyzed the tilt angle of more than 600 Kuiper belt objects.
“Imagine you have a lot of fast-spinning tops, and you give each of them a little impulse - a light push. If you take a picture of them at this moment, then in the pictures you will see how the axis of their rotation will slightly change, but on average it will be directed towards the Earth's gravitational field,”explains Malhotra.
Scientists also had to determine how large an object must be in order to exert such a gravitational influence. By analyzing the numbers, the researchers concluded that the size of the planet (if it is, of course, a planet) is equal to something in between the size of the Earth and Mars. In addition, judging by the data obtained, the inclination of the axis of this object is about 8 degrees, which, in turn, may indicate that there are practically no seasonal changes on the surface of this object.
Nevertheless, researchers do not yet rule out other options. For example, there can be several bodies that affect the tilt of the axis of Kuiper belt objects. And perhaps there are none at all, and the reason for the peculiarity of the inclination of Kuiper belt objects may be a wandering star that passed in the distant past in close proximity to our system.
Kat Wolf, Renu Malhotra and many other astronomers await data from the Pan-STARRS mission and the Large Synoptic Observation Telescope, which will begin operations in 2022 and will finally provide an accurate picture of what is happening on the outer edges of our solar system. Therefore, the only thing left now is just to wait.
NIKOLAY KHIZHNYAK