Japanese astronomers have put forward the possibility that an Earth-like planet exists within our solar system, hidden within the Kuiper Belt. In contrast to the widely discussed Planet Nine concept, this proposed planet is located much closer to our home planet. The Kuiper Belt is a ring of objects that extends just beyond Neptune, and this so-called Kuiper Belt planet (KBP) is believed to be up to 500 astronomical units (AU) away from the sun, making it closer than Planet Nine.
According to the experts, KBP is up to three times the mass of Earth, but due to the extremely cold temperatures in the Kuiper Belt, it is unlikely to support life as we know it. The study was conducted by Patryk Sofia Lykawka of Kindai University in Osaka, Japan and Takashi Ito of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan in Tokyo. Their paper, published in The Astronomical Journal, predicts the existence of an Earth-like planet, suggesting that a primordial planetary body could have survived in the Kuiper Belt, just as many similar bodies existed during the early stages of the solar system.
The Kuiper Belt is known to contain millions of icy objects known as trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), which are remnants from the formation of the solar system. These TNOs consist of a combination of rock, amorphous carbon, and volatile ices like water and methane. The orbits of these TNOs can provide clues about the existence of an undiscovered planet in the outer reaches of the solar system. The Japanese team suggests that an Earth-like planet within the Kuiper Belt could explain various properties of this distant region, including the presence of high-inclination objects and those with peculiar orbits.
While the researchers are proposing the existence of a Kuiper Belt planet, further research is needed to confirm its presence. It’s important to note that their proposed planet is distinct from Planet Nine, which is hypothesized to be much larger and located on a more distant orbit. The existence of Planet Nine was first theorized by experts in 2014 when they observed that the orbits of distant TNOs were being perturbed. However, concrete evidence for Planet Nine is still lacking, and some scientists remain skeptical. If Planet Nine does exist, it would be situated beyond the Kuiper Belt and could potentially have formed closer to the sun before being ejected through interactions with Jupiter. Various studies continue to explore different aspects of these intriguing planetary theories.
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