They Found A Potential “Super-Earth” At The Edge of The Solar System

this is BIG news..

Could you imagine the implications?  There have been some incredible pictures of Pluto this year with unprecedented clarity.  And now, astronomers think they may have detected a new large planet like formation past Pluto, at the very edge of our solar system.  Here is a bit more information on the developments:

Astronomers using data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have found a distant object in the direction of Alpha Centauri. The object appears to be in the outer region of our solar system, and depending on its distance could be a hypothesized ”super-Earth.”

In 2014, ALMA found a faint object in the direction of Alpha Centauri A & B. The object was again observed in May of this year, this time more clearly. Given that the object is within a few arcseconds of the Alpha Centauri system, it would seem reasonable to presume that it could be part of that system, possibly gravitationally bound as Alpha Centauri D. The Centauri system is about 4 light years away, and at that distance (given the object’s brightness at submillimeter wavelengths) it would have to be a red dwarf star. But such a star would also be clearly visible in the infrared, so if this object is Alpha Centauri D we should have seen it long ago.

It seems to be somewhat of a coincidence in that it was in the direction of Alpha Centauri.  Now that they have figured that out, expect much more focus on this unusual formation.  Here is one of the possibilites about this object which is the cause for all the buzz:

Another possibility (which seems more likely to the object’s discoverers) is that it is about 300 AU away and about 1.5 times the size of Earth, making it the first “super-Earth” found in our solar system.

Check back for updates.

thanks to forbes.com for the great info



218 Comments

  11. Kevin Hughes said:

    At that size and au it would be a super sized ice ball. Not Earth like at all. Also,it would be largely useless to us as the sun would look like a dim dot in the sky from its surface. Even as a place to go when the Earth is swallowed by the sun in the distant future it would still be useless.

    Reply
  12. Kevin Hughes said:

    It is because the Keiper belt and oort cloud as full of these planet sized ice balls that Pluto was demoted. If they did not then kids would have a hundred planets to memorize.

    Reply
  26. Gage Tate said:

    There’s 2 of them and the smaller one produces enough heat to produce earth like temp. They were found in the 80s its nothing new the only thing is low light would be our ptoblem

    Reply
  30. Dan Levin said:

    Seeing as astronomy.com already posted an article debunking this claim, I can no longer take this page seriously because it is pushing faulty logic and bad science.

    Reply
  31. Allen Parker said:

    It’s too far out for anything human. Remember guys were still in the 21st century building bombs to use on our own planet and our own species.

    Reply
  37. Kevin Hughes said:

    I am an astrobiologist and an astrogeologist. And I mentioned use to us. I am more concerned with searching for life on closer bodies that we can more easily study.

    Reply
  40. Deez Nutts said:

    You do know that unless you see anything outside of planet earth for yourself this could all be lies right ? Wait never mind live your book educated life , my bad.

    Reply

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