List of hypothetical Solar System objects
A hypothetical Solar System object is a planet, natural satellite or similar body in our Solar System whose existence is not known, but has been inferred from observational scientific evidence. Over the years a number of hypothetical planets have been proposed, and many have been disproved. However, even today there is scientific speculation about the possibility of planets yet unknown that may exist beyond the range of our current knowledge.
Planets
- Fifth planet (hypothetical), historical speculation about a planet between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
- Phaeton, a planet situated between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter whose destruction supposedly led to the formation of the asteroid belt. Nowadays this hypothesis is considered unlikely, since the asteroid belt has far too little mass to have resulted from the explosion of a large planet.
- Planet V, a planet thought by John Chambers and Jack Lissauer to have once existed between Mars and the asteroid belt, based on computer simulations.
- Planet X, a hypothetical planet beyond Neptune. Initially employed to account for supposed perturbations (systematic deviations) in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune, it has been disproved to cause any such perturbations, while the belief in them inspired the search for Pluto. The concept has been re-applied to account for subsequent observations of Kuiper Belt objects, however.
- Theia, a Mars-sized impactor believed to have collided with the Earth roughly 4.5 billion years ago; an event which created the Moon.
- Vulcan, a hypothetical planet once believed to exist inside the orbit of Mercury.
- Vulcanoids, a ring of asteroids which may exist within a gravitationally stable region inside Mercury's orbit.
- Tyche, a hypothetical planet in the Oort Cloud supposedly responsible for producing the statistical excess in long period comets in a band.[1]
- A hypothetical fifth gas giant has been mooted in a trans-Saturnian orbit between Saturn and Uranus, which was subsequently flung out of the Solar System into interstellar space after a close encounter with Jupiter, resulting in transferred angular momentum which caused Jupiter to recede from the Sun and may have insured the orbital stability of the inner terrestrial planets. It may have also precipitated the Late Heavy Bombardment of the inner Solar System [2]
Moons
- Chiron, a moon of Saturn supposedly sighted by Hermann Goldschmidt in 1861 but never observed by anyone else.
- Other moons of Earth, such as that thought by Frederic Petit, director of the Observatory of Toulouse, to have been observed three times on March 21, 1846.[3]
- Mercury's moon, hypothesised to account for a sudden burst of radiation detected by Mariner 10. It was disproved by the spacecraft's subsequent flyby. An object thought to be orbiting Mercury eventually revealed itself to be the star 31 Crateris.
- Neith, a purported moon of Venus, falsely detected by a number of telescopic observers in the 17th and 18th centuries. Now known not to exist, the object has been explained as a series of misidentified stars and internal reflections inside the optics of particular telescope designs.
- Themis, a moon of Saturn which astronomer William Pickering claimed to have discovered in 1905, but which was never seen again.[4]
- S/2000 J 11 was an object reportedly situated in the vicinity of Jupiter, but its orbit was never determined and later searches could not find it. It is no longer considered a likely Jovian satellite. [5]
Star
See also
References