After a decade of observations by the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii, the New Horizons mission, and the Hubble Telescope, the existence of a new cluster of objects at the edge of our solar system has been revealed.
The results of the research, which are to be published in the Planetary Science Journal, suggest that there may be a large disk of icy bodies beyond the Kuiper belt.
This could dramatically change the understanding of how our planetary system was formed and possibly the prevalence of life in the universe.
A great discovery
“If confirmed, this will be a great discovery,” said Fumi Yoshida, a planetary scientist at Japan’s University of Occupational and Environmental Health Sciences and co-author of one of the studies, in a report on the work.
In his opinion, the primary solar nebula was much larger than previously thought, and this may have implications for the study of the formation of planets in our solar system.”
The mysteries of the Kuiper belt
The Kuiper belt lies approximately 40-50 AU from the Sun. We remind you that 1 AU is the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Since this region is very dark, it has proved difficult to document the small objects that are there with telescopes.
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is currently flying deeper into the Kuiper belt to make up-close observations. It has been following this course since 2015.
The Subaru telescope has been observing the outer solar system to help New Horizons.
The Subaru Telescope has been searching for interesting Kuiper Belt objects for New Horizons and has been observing them since before the spacecraft was launched in 2006. These observations have already revealed 263 such objects, including 11 located beyond the accepted Kuiper belt boundary.
They orbit the Sun at a distance of 70 to 90 AU. There is a large empty space between them and the belt itself.
A separate structure
This void suggests that the detected objects form a separate structure from the Kuiper belt.
If true, this would mean that the Kuiper belt is much larger than previously thought. According to the researchers, this gap is a feature commonly observed in other planetary systems.
“The Kuiper belt of our solar system has long seemed very small compared to many other planetary systems, but our results suggest that this idea may have arisen simply because of observational bias,” said Wes Fraser, one of the New Horizons mission researchers.
According to him, if this result is confirmed, it will turn out that the Kuiper belt is not so small compared to those surrounding other stars.
The prevalence of life
In other words, our solar system may be less unique than we think. A well-known theory is that it formed from a solar nebula, essentially a dense cloud of gas. But the small size of the Kuiper Belt imposed restrictions on this nebula, which implied that it must have been extremely small.
This may no longer be the case, so the prerequisites for life in our solar system may be more widespread. Consequently, life in the entire universe may also be more widespread.
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