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New Dwarf Planet Found at Solar System’s Edge, Hints at Possible Faraway ‘Planet X’
Astronomers have found a new dwarf planet far beyond Pluto’s orbit, suggesting that this distant realm contains millions of undiscovered objects — including, perhaps, a world larger than Earth.
The newfound celestial body, called 2012 VP113, joins the dwarf planet Sedna as a confirmed resident of a far-flung and largely unexplored region scientists call the “inner Oort Cloud.” Further, 2012 VP113 and Sedna may have been pulled into their long, looping orbits by a big planet lurking unseen in these frigid depths.
“These two objects are just the tip of the iceberg,” study co-author Chadwick Trujillo, of the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii, told Space.com. “They exist in a part of the solar system that we used to think was pretty devoid of matter. It just goes to show how little we actually know about the solar system.” [New Dwarf Planet Photos: Images of 2012 VP113]
And how about the hypothesis of the possible existence of hyperbolical
planetary bodies, both small and big?
Anything pointing to that direction?
There’s probably tons of unknown stuff out there. Few telescopes can see that far and each one can only scan a fraction of a percent of the sky. NTM an astronomer’s mental focus is lost after about 20 minutes of scanning.