Astronomers struggle to explain all of the properties of trans-Neptunian objects.
Could an 'Earth-like' planet be hiding in our solar system's outer reaches?Second, there is a large population of TNOs — around a few percent — that have very high orbital inclinations, meaning they orbit theat an angle greater than 45 degrees. Again, models of the formation of the solar system have a tough time scattering so many objects to such extremely angled orbits.
Next, there are some TNOs with very large orbits that are simply known as"extreme." The most famous example of these is Sedna, a minor planet whose closest approach to the sun is around 76 AU and over 900 AU away at its farthest point.
A consistent theory of the outer solar system must be able to explain all of these discordant observations, and this is where a pair of researchers, reporting their results in a paper in The Astronomical Journal, found an interesting opportunity.solar system . However, those arguments focused mostly on the behavior of a handful of extreme TNOs. The problem is that the presence of a massive planet — something rivaling Neptune or even bigger — messes up other TNOs so much that it violates our understanding of their inclinations and their relationships to Neptune.
In the new study, the researchers ran hundreds of simulations of the formation of the solar system. The early system likely produced 10 to 100 planets with at least thebeyond the orbit of Neptune. Most of those planets were ejected from the solar system altogether by the complex gravitational machinations of the remaining planets. But a handful may have managed to survive and may even remain to the present day.
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