Fifth Gas Giant Planet May Have Been Ejected From Ancient Solar System: David Nesvorny

By John Matson

(Click here for original article.)

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Those are the gas giants, the four heavyweights of the solar system. But was there once a fifth?

Maybe so, says a new study by David Nesvorny of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. He used computer simulations to explore what the solar system may have looked like some four billion years ago.

Early on, the giant planets migrated, tugged on each other and generally shook things up before settling into their current orbits. So the simulation tested different initial arrangements of planets to see which would evolve into the solar system we know so well.

With just four giant planets at the outset, the solar system hardly ever wound up looking like ours. But with a fifth planet, the simulations produced familiar solar systems 10 times more often. [David Nesvorny, Young Solar System's Fifth Giant Planet? on arXiv.org]

So what happened to the extra planet? It would have run afoul of Jupiter and been chucked into interstellar space. Astronomers have recently discovered that the galaxy is filled with such orphaned planets. Billions of them. So, if an extra planet did get cast out of the solar system, at least it has plenty of company.

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Comments

[Wisdomatic]

12:44 AM on 09/30/2011

It didn't get flung out of the Solar System, it just became the Governor of New Jersey.

[RedDogBear]

10:01 AM on 09/22/2011

"So, if an extra planet did get cast out of the solar system, at least it has plenty of company."

Even with other planets cast out this planet wouldn't have much "company". Remember from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."

[cykodriven]

01:44 AM on 09/22/2011

Maybe it disappeared in Uranus.

[salbei]

04:04 PM on 09/21/2011

It's Obama's fault...lol

[Amanda Mickey]

12:50 PM on 09/21/2011

There's too many ppl on the earth to go displaying and speculating on every new theory.

We want truth!

And btw, its not Nibiru. There's no such thing. (gasp!)

[eugenegerard]

03:19 AM on 09/21/2011

Or it could be on an elliptical orbit that intersects our solar system every 3500 years. It would explain the Asteroid belt, Uranus tilting on its side and devastating events that seem to effect the earth on 3500 year cycles.

[p8q2b8ng]

12:38 PM on 09/21/2011

No it wouldn't.

[jessivehadit]

02:38 PM on 09/21/2011

haha. Awesome. Squash the nonsense.

[deepintheheartoftejas]

06:52 PM on 09/21/2011

But it'd probably make a great early 70s scifi book, if you threw in some hawt chicks riding dragons to fend off the menace of the dread planet.

[Nikuman]

11:02 PM on 09/21/2011

Mongo?

[fds]

01:17 AM on 09/21/2011

"Solar System May Have 'Kicked Out' Massive Planet"

Why not just say "Jupiter may have 'kicked out' fifth gas giant"? Fail at easy, reasonable headlines, HP editors.

[jt1980]

06:30 PM on 09/21/2011

Jupiter alone wouldn't have done the job. The Sun's and other planets' gravitational fields would need to join in to complete the deed.

[fds]

07:45 PM on 09/21/2011

Newp. Their effects on this fifth gas giant would have paled in comparison to Jupiter's. I assume the theory they have is that this fifth giant got caught too close to Jupiter, slingshotted around Jupiter (using its immense gravitation), and was hurtled into interstellar space. Just because Jupiter is part of the solar system doesn't mean the solar system did anything. That headline assumes the Kuiper Belt or Earth had something major to do with the ejection of the fifth gas giant.

[EmilyU]

12:33 AM on 09/21/2011

Nibiru?

[Rafael Perez]

12:40 AM on 09/22/2011

NO

[MichaelMcKLA]

12:28 AM on 09/21/2011

What are we waiting for? Let's go find it and bring it back.

[WorkhelpWorkhelp]

02:42 AM on 09/21/2011

Toga !

[Dustee]

10:05 AM on 09/21/2011

LOL, too funny! :)

[Shozen]

07:56 PM on 09/20/2011

Isn't it typical, the fifth one ALWAYS leaves right before the group gets popular!

[DAE]

05:14 PM on 09/20/2011

If your referring to Planet Limbaugh its still visible and hovering about in near Earth orbit.

[jessivehadit]

02:39 PM on 09/21/2011

The Limbaugh isn't a planet. It is a primordial ooze.

[timbeaux]

03:02 PM on 09/21/2011

No, it's definitely a gas giant.

[dispagi]

04:33 PM on 09/20/2011

The Earth, the moon and the other terrestrial planets along with Pluto and Ceres and possibly Kupier Belt Objects may be lost moons of this former gas giant. There's also the possibility it may have been consumed by Jupiter instead of being ejected.

[cagog]

04:02 PM on 09/20/2011

Probably the fifth Gas Giant became a rogue planet?

[pacman83]

01:32 PM on 09/20/2011

I really wish HuffPo would have a Science section, instead of putting articals like this in Tech

[mikeyaz17]

02:15 PM on 09/20/2011

agreed.. huffpost.. if youre listening you need to develop a robust science section

[bryanzth]

03:33 PM on 09/20/2011

Well, there is one. But in the UK edition.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/science

:)

BZ.

[Remy Arrr]

07:43 PM on 09/20/2011

Tea Baggers'd rail and protest the progressive liberal bias in HuffPo if there was a Science Section.
moreso than they already probably do

[WthyrBendragon]

12:57 PM on 09/20/2011

What I'd REALLY like from this article is a link to an animated simulation of the Solar system with the extra mega-planet showing a possible ejection scenario.