Japanese scientists on February 28 said they believed that another planet of two thirds of our Earth is orbiting the outer ring of the Solar System.
Researchers at Koke University in western Japan said computer calculations led them to conclude finding the mysterious ' Planet X ' would only be a matter of time. 'Because the temperature is very cold, its surface may be covered in ice, frozen ammonia and methane, ' said Professor Tadashi Mukai, head of the school's research team.
Mukai and Patryk Lykawka's study will be published in the April issue of Astronomy magazine in the US. 'It is likely that there is an unknown planet-like entity, as large as 30-70% of the Earth, that exists in the outer ring of the Solar System ,' the scientists conclude.
'If conducting further research, this planet will certainly be found in less than 10 years'.
Planet X, named for scientists, can have oblong elliptical orbits, orbiting the sun 1,000 years round. Scientists get this parameter by estimating its radius of about 15-26 billion km.
The study came after two years of all textbooks rewritten when Pluto was removed from the list of planets in the Solar System.
Pluto was discovered by the American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 in the Kuiper belt, the belt with dust frozen in the outer ring of the Solar System. In 2006, nearly a decade after Tombaugh's death, the International Astronomical Association concluded that Pluto is just a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt. Also according to the definition given on August 24, 2006 by the International Astronomical Society, every object in the Solar System (except the Sun) is classified into one of three categories, planet, dwarf planet. and small objects in the Solar System.
