A computer model has suggested that an icy, unknown world might exist in the distant reaches of our solar system beyond the orbit of Pluto!!The hidden world is predicted to be much bigger than Pluto by on the model and its existance would satisfy the long-held hopes for a "Planet X" envisioned by scientists and sci-fi fans alike.
This Planet X could also explain unusual features of the Kuiper Belt, a region of space beyond Neptune littered with icy and rocky bodies.
The computer model was created by Lykawka and Tadashi Mukai, from the Kobe University. The Model has been described in a recent issue of Astrophysical Journal.
If this Planet X is confirmed, it would technically not be a planet, but a plutoid. Read This Older Post to understand why!! Under IAU definitions, the new world will be the largest known plutoid!!
The Kuiper belt has always wed astrophysicists with its myterious characteristics. For example Sedna, a rocky object located three times farther from the sun than Pluto. Sedna takes 12,000 years to travel once around the Sun, and its orbit ranges from 80 to 100 astronomical units (AU).
Obviously, now the question rises, can this planet X support life?? Well, frankly, at that distance, any surface water completely frozen. However a subsurface oceans (like those suspected to exist on some planetary moons) may exist.
We are still scratching the edges of that region of the solar system, and I expect many surprises await us with the future deeper surveys --Mark Sykes, director of the Planetary Science Institute, Arizona.
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