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Our solar system has been and will continue to be a fascinating subject for astronomers for years to come, as there’s still so much we don’t know or understand about space. And for many years, we believed that Pluto was the far edge of our solar system, but that’s just about to change.
Recently, scientists have uncovered a dozen large objects hiding beyond the Kuiper Belt, potentially changing what we know about our solar system. The team used data collected from the Subaru Telescope on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea volcano and utilized artificial intelligence to sift through it quickly.
The findings were presented at the 54th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston, Texas, in March and could provide useful data for NASA’s New Horizons probe which was launched into deep space in 2006.
The Kuiper belt is a doughnut-shaped ring of icy objects around the sun that extends just beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is believed that these 12 potential massive objects are located approximately 60 astronomical units (AU) from the sun – with one AU being roughly 93 million miles – making them even further than Pluto which is 40 AU away from our star.
This discovery suggests that our solar system may be much larger than previously thought.
Though exciting, this breakthrough requires further research before any sort of confirmation can be made. Pedro Bernardinelli an astronomer at University of Washington commented to Science that “if there really is a new belt, that’s a super exciting thing” – so all eyes are on this team as they continue to analyze their data and make any potential breakthroughs along their journey.
In 2006 NASA launched their New Horizons probe with one purpose: exploring Pluto and beyond into the Kuiper Belt.
With this new discovery of twelve large objects potentially hidden beyond our current understanding of our Solar System it looks like even more questions will be answered with this mission as it continues its journey into deep space.
