Japanese Astronomers Find Earth-like Planets In The Kuiper Belt

The Kuiper belt is located near the Planet Neptune. (photo: dock. pexels)

JAKARTA - For years, astronomers have teased the concept of another planet within our solar system, commonly called Planet Nine (Nine).

However, Japanese astronomers have now revealed that there is a possibility of a'Earth-like' planet waiting to be found much closer to us, precisely in the Kuiper Belt, a donut-shaped ring that stretches just beyond Neptune's orbit.

The planet in the Kuiper Belt (KBP) is said to be up to 500 astronomical units (AU) from the sun - 500 times the distance between Earth and the sun, and closer than Planet Nine.

Experts say this KBP has a mass up to three times from Earth, but its temperature is likely too cold to support life as we know it.

The study was conducted by Patryk Sofia Lykawka from Kindai University in Osaka, Japan, and Takashi Ito from the Japan National Astronomy Observatory in Tokyo.

"We predict the existence of Earth-like planets," they said in their paper published in The Astronomical Journal. "It's possible that a body of a primordial planet can survive in the far Kuiper Belt as a KBP, as such many bodies existed early in the solar system."

The Kuiper Belt contains millions of frozen objects, which are referred to as trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) because they are outside Neptune. TNOs are believed to be remnants of the formation of the solar system and consist of mixtures of rock, amorphous carbon, and volatile ices such as water and methane.

"The orbit of trans-Neptunian objects (TNO) can indicate the presence of planets that have not been found outside the solar system," the Japanese team said, quoted by MailOnline.

Some of these objects have'strange orbits' that suggest they are being gravitationally influenced by something larger nearby.

The belt also has a significant population of high inclination objects - which have a high inclination when orbiting the sun. Computer simulations show that hypothetical KBPs can be responsible for these effects.

"We determine that an Earth-like planet located in a distant and oblique orbit can explain three fundamental properties of the distant Kuiper Belt," they wrote. "That's right, a prominent TNO population with orbits beyond Neptune's gravitational influence, a population of objects with significant high inclinations, and the presence of some extreme objects with peculiar orbits."

Experts note that they predict, not confirm, the existence of the Kuiper Belt planet, so further research is still needed.

They also emphasize that the planets they propose are different from the previously hypothesized Nine planets, which are much more massive and believed to be in more distant orbits.

Planet Sembilan was first hypothesized by experts from Caltech in 2014, in the same way, they see that TNO orbits are most disturbed.

Astronomers still claim that this could be explained by the gravitational pull force of the ninth planet in our solar system orbiting 20 times further from our sun than Neptune.

However, to date, astronomers only have circumstantial evidence for the existence of Planet Nine - and some are unsure that the planet really exists. If so, Planet Sembilan is in the outermost region of our solar system, outside the Kuiper Belt, not inside.

Planet Sembilan could have formed inside the inner solar system initially and then bounced off by interactions with Jupiter, a research team said in 2020.

Another study published earlier this year revealed that Planet Sembilan could be surrounded by 20 hot months, which might help experts find it.