Astronomers claim to have found evidence which suggests that the solar system might have a fifth giant planet, which was mysteriously knocked out into deep space, The Daily Mail newspaper reported.
It’s known that the solar system has had four giant planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus. Computer simulations by researchers at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, showed that it is statistically extremely unlikely that the solar system began with four giants.
By their calculations, it only had a 2.5 percent chance of reaching its current population and orbital layout with four giants, but was 10 times more likely to have developed to its present state if there was a fifth monster body in the mix, the paper reported. To reach this conclusion, the researchers ran 6,000 simulations of the solar system’s birth.
