Solar System Ejects Fifth Large Planet?

Astronomer David Nesvorny believes our solar system once contained a fifth giant planet, along with modern-day Neptune, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus.  

Nesvony began his studies back in September, when he hypothesized that the solar system once contained a fifth giant planet that was ejected from space at some point.

He noted the uncommon configuration of the solar system's four planets.

"The solar system, with the widely spaced and nearly circular orbits of the giant planets, bears little resemblance to the bulk of exoplanets," he said in September.

In a press release, Nesvorny of the Southwest Research Institute argues that many theories concerning the formation of the solar system come from the Kuiper belt, consisting of icy remnants extending beyond Neptune's orbit.

After studying the asteroid remnants in the Kuiper belt as well as crater indents in the moon, Nesvorny determined the presence of a fifth planet as the only plausible explanation for the current orbit of the four giant planets and the earth’s survival.

According to Nesvorny’s theory, when the planets were only 600 years old, a cosmic instability causes them to change their orbits. This can be seen through the trans-Neptunian debris found in the Kuiper belt.

Nesvorny then invented the "jumping-Jupiter" theory, which argues that when the cosmic disruption occured, Jupiter jumped its orbit, forever altering the orbit of all planets.

Under this theory, however, Jupiter would have bumped Uranus or Neptune out of the solar system.

Subsequently, the planets could have eventually collided with each other or collided with Earth, causing it to break into thousands of pieces.

He then conducted a total of 6,000 computer simulated tests to prove his "jumping-Jupiter" theory.

"This "jumping-Jupiter" theory is very difficult to achieve for the four-planet system. But it's a natural consequence of the five-planet system," Nesvorny says.

Therefore, Nesvorny argues that perhaps there was possibly a fifth planet in the solar system which Jupiter bumped out of the solar system.

"The possibility that the solar system had more than four giant planets initially, and ejected some, appears to be conceivable in view of the recent discovery of a large number of free-floating planets in interstellar space, indicating the planet ejection process could be a common occurrence," Nesvorny said in a press release.