There Was The Fifth Giant Planet In Our Solar System?

Astronomer David Nesvorny of Southwest Research Institute from Texas believes that our solar system may have had a fifth planet once near Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. He believes that this planet was designed in the depths of our galaxy in a moment of cosmic disorder. After carefully studying the Kuiper Belt and craters from the Moon, Nesvorny concluded that about 600 millions years ago in the life of our solar system unstable orbit dynamics appeared that affected giant planets and made smaller celestial objects scatter. So, some of them moved in the Kuiper Belt and others moved on the inside of the galaxy.There also existed an impact with the Moon and other planets. If things would have been like that, then changes in the orbit of Jupiter would have had devastating effect on large and small planets like the Earth, the last one being able to collide with Mars or Venus.

So, something was wrong. "My colleagues have suggested another way to solve this problem", said Nesvory in a press conference.

It was assumed that Jupiter's orbit could change very quickly and not too slowly. But it didn't solve the problem because all the computer simulations performed have shown that sudden change of Jupiter's orbit would have made the planets Uranus and Neptune to be expelled from our solar system. So, probably in our solar system there was a fifth giant planet. Introducing another giant planet with a mass similar to that of Uranus or Neptune made perfect computer simulations that is the result of today's solar system as we know it. With Jupiter remaining in his place the inner planets remained unaffected and the outer planets remained behind.

"The possibility that our solar system had more than four giant planets in the beginning and then some of them were ejected seem to be feasible conditions because recently scientists discovered a large number of free floating planets in interstellar space indicating that the process of ejection of planets is one that is currently happening", said Nesvorny.

Therefore, is this scenario were true this fifth planet could be Planet X?