our solar system is home to eight planets one star 146 moons and a cosmic plethora of comets dwarf planets and asteroids is this the whole story though or are there more objects than we currently know some think there just might be a ninth planet and they also believe it could have cataclysmic consequences for Earth this is unveiled and today we're answering the extraordinary question does this planet exist and will it kill Earth do you need the big questions answered are you constantly curious then why not subscribe to unveiled for more Clips like this one and
ring the bell for more thought-provoking content the solar system is defined as the sun and all the bodies gravitationally bound to it eight planets orbit our star with the first four residing in the inner solar system these are all similar to Earth being small and rocky mercury is the smallest and closest to the Sun then further out sits Venus Earth and finally Mars four more planets can be found in the outer solar system these being Jupiter Saturn Uranus and Neptune all four are much larger than any inner planet the first two being Gas Giants and
the last are ice giants nothing larger than the planets in general orbits the sun though and Jupiter is the largest of all nevertheless there are theories that we're missing something that actually there's another plane sized World Somewhere Out There evading our eye so could a ninth planet really be possible given its potential size and impact you might expect scientists to have already figured this out but claims are that if it does exist it's too far away to be easily seen that said there could still be evidence that it is out there mathematically it's said by
some that our solar system behaves as if yes there could be an extra Planet it's a highly debated Topic in the field but researchers nickname this potential new world as Planet 9 or Planet X ultimately though it can be called anything you like at the moment since naming rights go to the discoverer and it hasn't yet been discovered so why do we think it might be there in 2015 Caltech researchers created computer simulations of our solar system these were mathematical models and they provided apparent evidence for a large unknown Mass somewhere in a wide elongated
orbit around the sun it's a prediction formed due to objects in the Kyper belt possessing peculiar orbits unusual routes through space that might only make sense if there were something else having an effect over them past the orbit of Neptune the Kyper belt is an icy ring surrounding our system populated by frozen bodies it's here that Pluto lives on the very edge of our solar neighborhood Pluto is the most famous example of a Kyper Bel object or a kbo for short kbos can also be classified as trans neptunian objects or tnos which are simply objects
in our solar system Beyond Neptune back to the study though and a handful of small kbos were found to to be bunched together in an unexpected way they follow orbits which point and tilt in the same direction they behave remarkably similar to one another the chances of this happening randomly are incredibly small however almost impossible so researchers first checked if their kbo cluster might instead be being Guided by another more massive kbo but this was found to be impossible as well since it would require the Kyper belt to have 100 times its actual mass still
it would appear that something is exerting a gravitational influence and many have interpreted the study to mean that there is another planet drawing and anchoring these errant kbos calculations Point toward it being up to 10 times the mass of Earth with an average orbit that's 20 times the distance of Neptune Neptune is the outermost known planet sitting roughly 2.8 billion miles from the Sun at such a distance it takes 165 years to complete one Journey around our star for theoretical Planet 9 however it would take significantly longer somewhere between 10 and 20,000 years it's one
reason why Finding and tracking such a world would be difficult that said if it is there then it's also the most dominant planet in the solar system Planet 9 would and should have an influence over a larger region than any other planet in our group it's easy to see then why some astronomers are excited by what might be found and in the decade since the original Caltech study more and more have turned their ATT attention to understanding the true nature of our local space the strange orbits of certain kbos could be said to constitute the
first evidence of a new planet found since the 19th century and it isn't only those bunched up few there are other potential examples of Planet 9 at work in 2003 the dwarf planet sedna was discovered in the Kyper belt and again it was and is unusual typically kbos follow a cycle of being gravitationally dispelled by Neptune then d dting back into its influence it's what shapes their path through space sedna is unique though since it never once gets close to Neptune originally the leading proposed explanation was that a passing non-solar system star is what caused
this effect but research also shows that it could instead be Planet 9 that's to blame for sedna's irregularities elsewhere in 2014 we discovered dwarf planet 2012 vp113 also known as Biden it's strikingly similar to sedna its peculiarities leading some onlookers to again paint a radical new picture of how the solar system really works to some it's the immense gravity of Planet 9 that's gradually pulling or shepherding these distant objects away from Neptune into more eccentric travel paths in more recent times in 2024 a paper was published comparing the potential effects of Planet 9 to those
of Galactic Tides Planet 9 naysayers argue that Galactic tides could cause the same effect these are similar to Ocean Tides but arise due to a combination of massive gravitational forces that swirl across the Milky Way galaxy over vast periods these external effects can and do perturb the orbits of stars like the sun and ultimately Galactic Tides have a huge bearing on exactly how galaxies are shaped as such they could in theory quite easily serve to move a few kbos out of place however simulations of Galactic Tides only were reported unable to explain the Kyper belt
Mysteries that we're seeing meanwhile The Sims that included Planet 9 as a point of reference reportedly matched exactly what we see in reality for now the fact is that we are still dealing in just simulations though the extra planet is yet to be discovered and confirmed there are imminent projects such as the ver ruin Observatory slated to open soon in Chile that could make the Breakthrough but until then we're searching in the dark which is perhaps concerning because finally there are some theories toward an extra solar system Planet being more than just a discovery waiting
to be made rather there are some who believe that it could be a doomsday waiting to happen it's a popular end of the world scenario called the Nibiru cataclysm it says that the extra planet is called Nibiru and certain groups believe that in the 21st century it will have a disastrous encounter or even collision with Earth here though there's not quite so much by way of academic research to back the view up the origin of most Nibiru cataclysm theories lies with the psychic Nancy leader in the mid99s she claimed to have made contact with aliens
called the zetans she started the website Zeta talk amidst the belief that she had established communication via a specialist brain implant it was on Zeta talk that she spread supposedly zitan ideas including most notably a warning regarding Nibiru about how it would soon destroy the Earth her theories and projections caused panic at the time particularly in the runup to May 2003 when leader claimed Nibiru would come so close that it would dramatically disrupt and perhaps even halt the rotation of our world from here all forms of Hell on Earth would unfold obviously this never happened
leader later claimed it was part of a so-called white lie designed to fool The Establishment and she opted to withhold the actual date from that moment onwards other groups became inspired by her ideas though and came up with their own dates on which the same or a similar hidden Planet event could unfold one of these was of course December 21st 2012 which also clearly never happened from a more scientific perspective if a planet matching leader claims ever were to come close to us then yes it would almost definitely kill us but the good news is
that no one seriously expects that to happen if there were one close enough we'd simply know about it by now and as for the distant planet 99 predicted by some astronomers even if it were the real deal its orbit is so extremely large that there's actually more danger of Jupiter destroying us which is already almost impossible Planet 9 may exist it genuinely could be discovered in our lifetimes but you can also rest easy because even if it's out there it isn't a threat what do you think is there anything we missed let us know in
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