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Scientists discover new planet the size of Mars

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Scientists discover new planet the size of Mars

A recent research paper claims there is a massive object lurking on the edge of our solar system that is likely to be a previously undiscovered world.

It follows suggestions last year that another planet – nicknamed Planet 9 – appeared to be orbiting the sun from the outer regions of the solar system.

Scientists discovered Planet 9 after noticing that something was exerting a gravitational force on objects in the Kuiper Belt – an area of comets, the dwarf planet Pluto and huge icy objects beyond Neptune that encircles the whole solar system.

Read also: Toxic nature of Martian soil makes it hard to support life on Mars, scientists say

The unusual orbits of the objects could be explained by a planet with a mass 10 times that of Earth exerting a gravitational pull on them, researchers said.

Now a similar analysis has revealed the possibility of a second new planet, dubbed Planet 10.

In a study to be published in the Astronomical Journal, Kat Volk and Renu Malhotra from the University of Arizona discovered that a number of Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) are not orbiting in the way they would normally be expected to, suggesting something in the region is exerting a strong gravitational force on them.

 

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