There could be a monster lurking in the outer reaches of our solar system.
Researchers observed a dwarf planet called 2012 VP113 further out then the known "edge" of our solar system, a Carnegie Institution news release reported. The researchers suggested there could be a planet 10 times larger than Earth influencing this object's orbit.
2012 VP113 is believed to exist in the inner Oort cloud, which may contain thousands of other objects.
Our solar system can be divided into three parts: "the rocky planets like Earth, which are close to the Sun; the gas giant planets, which are further out; and the frozen objects of the Kuiper belt, which lie just beyond Neptune's orbit," the news release reported. Researchers thought there was only one object, dubbed sedna, that resided at the "edge" of our solar system.
"This is an extraordinary result that redefines our understanding of our Solar System," Linda Elkins-Tanton, director of Carnegie's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, said in the news release.
The research suggests that sedna is not unique, but rather one of many objects. 2012 VP113 is about 80 times farther away from the Sun than Earth at its closest orbit point.
"The search for these distant inner Oort cloud objects beyond Sedna and 2012 VP113 should continue, as they could tell us a lot about how our Solar System formed and evolved," Carnegie's Scott Sheppard said in the news release.
Sheppard and his partner Chadwick Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory employed the " Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the NOAO 4 meter telescope in Chile" to make their findings, the news release reported. Using this equipment the researchers were able to obser 900 objects with orbits similar to Sedna's.
"Some of these inner Oort cloud objects could rival the size of Mars or even Earth. This is because many of the inner Oort cloud objects are so distant that even very large ones would be too faint to detect with current technology," Sheppard said.
The researchers believe a Super Earth or other large object could be "sheparding" these smaller objects into their orbits.
