The potential discovery of a new dwarf planet challenges the Planet Nine theory

TNOs, which are described as small planets orbiting the Sun at a greater distance than Neptune, were found at the edge of our solar system.

While there are plenty of other TNOs in the solar system, what makes 2017OF201 special is its large size and extreme orbit.

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A team of scientists at Princeton’s School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study may have found a new dwarf planet, which could lead to more evidence of a theoretical superplanet. (NASA/JPL-Caltech; 2017 OF201 image: Sihao Cheng et al.)

The discovery was made by one of the team’s leaders, Sihao Cheng, along with Jiaxuan Li and Eritas Yang of Princeton University.

The team used advanced mathematical methods to determine the object’s distinctive path pattern in the sky.

“The object’s apogee — the farthest point in the orbit from the Sun — is more than 1,600 times greater than Earth’s orbit,” Cheng said in the statement. “Meanwhile, its perihelion — the closest point in its orbit to the Sun — is 44.5 times Earth’s orbit, similar to Pluto’s orbit.”

2017OF201 takes about 25,000 years to orbit the Sun, leading Yang to suggest that it “must have had close encounters with a giant planet, hurling it into a wide orbit.”

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The solar system consists of the sun, eight planets, 138 moons, and many comets, asteroids, and other space rocks. (NASA)

Cheng also added that there may have been more than one step in his migration.

“It is likely that this object was first ejected into the Oort Cloud, the outermost region of our solar system, which is home to many comets, and then was sent back,” Cheng said.

This discovery has important implications for the current understanding of the layout of our planet The outer solar system.

According to NASACaltech astronomers Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown in January 2016 announced research that provided evidence of the existence of a planet about 1.5 times the size of Earth in the outer solar system.

However, the existence of Planet X or Planet Nine is purely theoretical, as no astronomers have actually observed such a planet.

“Although advances in telescopes have enabled us to explore distant parts of the universe, there is still a lot to discover about our solar system,” Cheng said. (Reuters/ESA/Hubble/NASA/Handout via Reuters)

The theory puts the planet at roughly the same size Like Neptuneaway from Pluto somewhere near the Kuiper Belt, where 2017OF201 is located.

If it exists, it would supposedly have a mass of up to 10 times that of Earth with a distance of up to 30 times farther than Neptune’s to the Sun.

It will take between 10,000 and 20,000 Earth years To make a complete revolution around the sun.

However, the region beyond the Kuiper Belt, where the object is located, was previously thought to be essentially empty, but the team’s discovery suggests that this is not the case.

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2017OF201 only shows us about 1% of its orbit, Cheng said in the statement.

“Although Advances in telescopes “It has enabled us to explore distant parts of the universe, and there is still a lot to discover about our solar system,” Cheng said.

If Planet Nine exists, it could help explain the unique orbits of some smaller objects in the distant Kuiper Belt, NASA said.

So far, Planet Nine is still just a theory, but the existence of this distant world depends on gravitational patterns in the outer solar system.

Nick Butler is a Fox News digital correspondent. Do you have any tips? Contact Nick.Butler@Fox.com.