Two Super-Earth Planets Could be Lurking at the Edge of the Solar System
 
   
 

 
   
According to a new study, astronomers say it's possible that two super-Earth plants that have never been seen could be hiding near the edge of the solar system. 

Carlos de la Fuente Marcos of the Complutense University of Madrid and his colleagues are proposing.  They say, Far beyond even the Kuiper Belt, in the Oort Cloud at the edge of our solar system, could be two Earth-sized objects pulling smaller objects into weird orbits. 

The idea has been proposed before, notably with the 2012 discovery of "Biden,", whose orbit hinted at a distant object tugging on it. However, the idea of a large gas giant "Planet X," or a distant dim binary star system, has been all but disproven by a survey from WISE, a NASA near-infrared space telescope completed in 2014. Importantly, though, the findings from the survey didn't rule out an object the size of Neptune or smaller. That means it's not impossible that the sort of super-Earths found in other solar systems, between Earth and Neptune in size, could be out there. 

These mystery members of our solar system, if they exist, would be more than 200 AU away from the sun (or 200 times the Earth-to-sun distance). Finding them with existing technology might be hard, as they'd be dim, cold, and possibly rocky, meaning they wouldn't reflect enough light to be easily spotted or radiate enough energy to be picked up by something like WISE. But as long as it's possible they're out there, scientists will keep looking. 
 
 

        

 

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