There may be an unexplored Earth - similar planet lurking within the solar system , according to a team of astronomers looking at the movement of objects in the Kuiper Belt .

find planets is no simple task , now that we ’ve found the ones like Jupiter which were helpful enough to be fairly seeable from Earth . When looking for exoplanets ( planets outside of our solar arrangement ) , we are capable to bet for dips in light as they pass in front of their parent star . It ’s not quite a doddle , but we have discovered5,502 . Not bad , considering we only determine our first in1992 .

give away physical object in our own solar scheme is a little more complicated , and involves get hold where to take care by watch the social movement of other objects . Neptune was discovered after stargazer and mathematician Urbain Le Verrier noticed a difference between the observed orbit of Uranus and the way Newtonian physics predicted its orbit to be . He calculated that the orbit could be explained by the gravitational influence of a planet beyond Uranus . sure enough enough , when German stargazer Johann Gottfried Galle check where Le Verrier said the major planet should be , he foundNeptune .

In a new newspaper , astrophysicists Patryk Sofia Lykawka of Kindai University in Japan and Takashi Ito of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan take care at the movement of objects in the Kuiper Belt . run simulation , the team fix that a planet of around Earth ’s size could explain the strange movements of objects far beyond the orbit of Neptune .

allot to the team , the planet would be around 1.5 - 3 time the the great unwashed of the Earth and on an inclined orbit of around 30 degrees . The squad suggests where to count next for evidence of the planet ’s being .

" The effect of the KBP [ Kepler Belt Planet ] scenario support the macrocosm of a yet - unexplored planet in the far out solar arrangement , " the squad write in their end . " what is more , this scenario also predicts the existence of new TNO [ trans - Neptunian object ] populations locate beyond 150 au [ galactic units ] generate by the KBP ’s perturbations that can serve as observationally testable signature of the cosmos of this major planet . "

" More elaborated knowledge of the orbital structure in the distant Kuiper Belt can discover or rule out the existence of any supposed major planet in the out solar system . "

Though this may sound familiar , the writer write that this is freestanding from the supposed " planet 9 " , which some have theorized is far more massive , and further out than the potential solid ground - alike planet in the Kuiper Belt .

The study is write inThe Astronomical Journal .