You might think we know the solar system pretty well, but there's a lot more to our cosmic neighborhood than initially meets the eye .
If it does exist, Planet Nine is likely an icy gas giant around seven times more massive than Earth, which would make it the fifth-largest planet in the solar system. However, the planet could be extremely far away, possibly orbiting our sun once every 10,000 years, which means it would be very faint and extremely hard to spot.
But even if a baby black hole is not masquerading as Planet Nine, other researchers believe there could be even smaller"primordial" black holes in the outer solar system and that these supersmall singularities could be making some planets and moons wobble. Second Kuiper BeltThe Kuiper Belt could play a key role in detecting hidden worlds within the solar system. But it may also be hiding a secret of its own — a twin.
The solar system harbors five known dwarf planets: Ceres, Haumea, Eris, Makemake and the ex-planet Pluto, according to NASA. Other candidates such as Gonggong, Quaoar and Sedna are not officially recognized as dwarf planets but are often referred to as such by astronomers. Cryovolcanic comets only erupt near the sun, when solar radiation causes intense pressure to build up within their outer shells, or nuclei, eventually triggering explosive outbursts. However, most comets have highly elliptical orbits, meaning they spend a majority of their orbits floating in the outer solar system before sweeping into the inner solar system every few decades or centuries. This makes it hard to spot which ones are cryovolcanic.
Astronomers have already spotted two confirmed interstellar objects: 'Oumuamua, an oblong object that made headlines in 2017 after some researchers mistakenly suggested that it could be an alien probe; and Comet 2I/Borisov, which was spotted in 2019 as it sailed through the solar system. Other researchers suspect that a tiny meteor that exploded over Earth in 2014 was also an interstellar interloper.
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Source: Nature - 🏆 64. / 68 Read more »