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

  1. Manuel Gil said:

    I think that 100 years ago we would say a lot of things aren’t possible. This object is something that was spotted about 8 years ago. It’s also why they made the Pluto probe. There is a theory that there is a brown dwarf at the edge of the solar system and that it has its own planetary system. The orbit of the star if it does exist would coincide with major events in the interior of the solar system. The gravity of the object may be why large asteroids enter the inner solar system as it disrupts the gravity of the asteroid belt as it passes. Additionally the star could be where life originated in our solar system at is would emit low levels of light and still generate enough heat to support life and liquid water. There is a lot of things we know to support this theory. We are pretty much a huge anomaly if we are not a binary system. All Stars we observe are binary. Based on the size of our sun we should have another star lurking out there. Based on all other solar systems we have observed this should be highly probable. The thing is that we really know very little about the edge of the solar system.

  2. Chris Sanders said:

    ‘Super earth’ suggests it could be just like earth but larger. Like it could sustain life. But any amateur scientist knows that if this planet was on the edge of our solar system it would be too cold to possibly support any form of life.

    In fact this article has so many factual holes in it it may as well be considered an out right lie.

  3. Ryan Kody said:

    That is all really really speculative though. And we have way better theories. That was certainly not why new horizons was sent out to the Kieper belt. And not all stars are binary. About 8/10 are. Most of the scientific world does not believe we are a binary system. Although it is possible. It is much more probable that when we bob up and down through the disk of the Milky way we pass through strong gravitational zones that disrupt the Oort cloud shooting comets into our solar system

  4. Manuel Gil said:

    I understand that although the mass of our star strongly suggests we should be a binary system. The first time I heard all this was on cnn. They ran a story on it and and article explaining everything I wrote. A sensor was put in the probe to look for evidence of it.

  5. Manuel Gil said:

    And most stars we observe that have only one star is decreasing. As we become better at identifying binary star systems the amount that have one just goes down.

  6. Ryan Kody said:

    Yeah. That is true. However. But I would assume (and that’s all im doing now)that we would be able to measure the wobble of our star to detect an outside source of gravitational pull. And I would also assume that we would of not predicted Uranus and Neptune would of existed as we did. I hace heard of this theory a couple years back. Didn’t study up on it too much. I don’t think that a majority of the evidence point’s in that direction any way

  7. Andrew Collins said:

    Jerri, be that as it may, unless that planet is the same distance to one of Centauri’s brighter stars, it would not matter because that planet would be a super earth-sized ball of ice

  8. Jordan Peltz said:

    Took the words right out of my mouth. It’s rather a cool find, however, as you stated the title is more “click-bait” than factual.

  9. Manuel Gil said:

    I think that we are just beginning to understand the outer solar system. Here I’ll post one of the clips I can find. I personally was excited for this probe to go out there because I’m a little curious as to was we will find.

  10. Manuel Gil said:

    More recent I might be able to find the one about the probe, I’m not sure it’s so old and I only saw a little exposure on it.

  11. Manuel Gil said:

    Indian culture believes in another planet that was observable in ancient time. I wonder if this is what it was and if there is a pattern to its visibility. A two star system is an ancient concept so I do wonder.

  12. Josh Powell said:

    All I can say if we ever do find another earth lime planet we will never get to see if. Just rich and powerful will get there leave to another earth and we will be here to rot away. Our government don’t gives 2 shits about us and never will.

  13. Ryan Kody said:

    We do have much to learn. But at the same time because of the orbits of the planet’s and the gravitational pull of them and other objects in our ss we are fairly certain that nothing with the mass of a planet the size of Earth or larger is out there. Not inside the Oort cloud anyway. We would detect and predict it’s position because it would effect the orbits of everything else. Mych like we predicted Uranus and Neptune well before we knew they were there.

  14. Ryan Kody said:

    And most ancient cultures were completely wrong about the Cosmos. Not really their fault ofcourse. They had absolutely no information to go on. Outside of eyewitness testimony. Of course that is the poorest form of proof even today

  15. Alex Thomas said:

    We are Gods children, don’t let these other beings that are evil that are under the magnifying glass stray u away from Our Heavenly Father, I love science & mythology, they both make me know even more that there’s higher forces at work… Negative ones & positive ones & our governments are evil, they’re working with demonic beings to control us & our connection with our Heavenly father…

  16. Jonathan Farmer said:

    Yeah, yeah that’s it…plus with it’s “grater mass then earth”, (greater, than), the core would actually be hotter due to the increased gravity as compared to Earth’s mass….so put those two together and I bet it is just so toasty warm there. 😉

  17. Eric Faulk said:

    Unless it has an inside heat source. Like constant lava flow at the poles with intense heat. But I’d still think it’d need sun rays for it’s vitamins and what not to support any kind of complex biological being.

  18. Gary Westfall said:

    It’s way too far away from not only a light source but a heat source the core of the planet could make it a bit warmer if it was active but if it is a super planet the core alone would not be enough to make the planet warm

  19. Thomas Winston said:

    Actually a planet found on the edge of our solar system could support life. We find rogue planets all the time that have internal heat sources to sustain an ocean. there are two such planets just on the outside of our Oort cloud.

  20. Thomas Winston said:

    for everyone that thinks this has to be a frozen planet like Neptune or Uranus are mistaken . we find rogue planets all the time without a host star, and many of these have their own internal heat source.

  21. Steven Leighty said:

    This thing is 90% of the way to Alpha Centauri! It is NOT part of our solar system and it would by no means be a “super earth that far from a red dwarf. Besides that, i read about this earlier in a different article. Its not even confirmed to exist yet. False article..

  22. Thomas Winston said:

    actually you’re mistaken, we find rogue planet all the time that are capable of supporting life and not just microbial, you assume all life is like that here on earth, which couldn’t be further from the truth. scientists are very confident that there is life in the oceans of Europa, like life that existed here 350 million years ago .

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