Scientists' hunt for a mysterious planet at the edge of our solar system might have turned up results. A US-trio appears to have discovered a distant dwarf planet with a 25,000-year orbit bringing it into the ring of icy rocks around the solar system called the Oort cloud.
It's an evocative idea that has long bedevilled scientists: a huge and mysterious planet is lurking in the darkness at the edge of our solar system, evading all our efforts to spot it.
Some astronomers say the strange, clustered orbits of icy rocks beyond Neptune indicate that something big is out there, which they have dubbed Planet Nine.
Now, a US-based trio hunting this elusive world has instead stumbled on what appears to be a new dwarf planet in the solar system's outer reaches.
And the existence of this new kid on the block could challenge the Planet Nine theory, the researchers have calculated.
Named 2017 OF201, the new object is roughly 700 kilometres (430 miles) across according to a preprint study, which has not been peer-reviewed, published online last week.
That makes it three times smaller than Pluto.
But that is still big enough to be considered a dwarf planet, lead study author Sihao Cheng of New Jersey's Institute for Advanced Study told AFP.
Distant traveller
The object is currently three times farther away from Earth than Neptune.
And its extremely elongated orbit swings out more than 1,600 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun, taking it into the ring of icy rocks around the solar system called the Oort cloud.
It goes so far out, it could have passed by stars other than our Sun in the past, Cheng said.
-AFP
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