In an attempt to find the reasons, which led to the wobbly effect of Uranus’s orbit, researchers discovered other planets like Neptune and Pluto but there was no Planet X anywhere. Similarly, the hunt for Sun like star, Nemesis, which they claim might have wiped out the age of dinosaurs completely, is still a far-fetched dream.
It’s been an effort of more than two centuries and now the researchers want to draw line to reach a conclusion. Kevin Luhman an astronomer at the University of Pennsylvania asserted that there are no such cosmic bodies like the Planet X or the Nemesis.
Interestingly, Luhman does not all together rule out the probability of planet being prowling out somewhere in the asteroid belt but he claimed the odds of finding such body is highly unlikely.
What is Planet X?
It was in 1781 that Planet X was first observed by the space scientists. With the discovery of Uranus, the researchers noticed that there happens to be a gigantic gas mass, presence of which is responsible for causing orbital variation and is very much inconsistent with the laws of gravity as postulated by Newton.
In an effort to track the presence of the mysterious Planet X, space scientists discovered Neptune in 1846. However, the researchers were still not satisfied because the mass of Neptune was not responsible either ways to the distortions, which was being observed in the orbit of Uranus.
Again, the search for the Planet X continued which made them discover Pluto in 1930. However, the dwarfness of the new planet wasn’t enough to suffice the reasons which led to the orbital variation.
Eventually in 1990s, researchers concluded that Neptune’s mass could be the only reason for Uranus’s asymmetrical trail. But this theory was not accepted by other group of scientists who were supporting the belief of the existence of Planet X.
What is Nemesis?
In 1984, a hypothetical star called the Nemesis was postulated by space scientists. It was believed that it orbited the Sun nearly at a dist. of 1.5 light years. Till 2012, more than 1800 such stars have been identified and all of them have been positioned outside the solar system.
Researchers believe that the presence of Nemesis distorts the orbits of comets and asteroids thus making them clashing with the Earth every now and then. Scientists went further and claimed that these collisions are responsible for mass extinctions something like the annihilation of dinosaurs from the Earth over 65m years ago. However, Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), NASA infrared-wavelength astronomical space telescope, did not find any such clue.
With the due course of time, the search for Planet X and Nemesis has not be fruitful as expected but the hunt has revealed quite a number of celestial objects like 3,525 stars that lie somewhere around 500 light years of the sun.
Image: [Beforeitsnews.com & Space.com]
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