NASA may soon confirm orbit of giant planet lurking beyond Pluto

February 15, 2011 – Scientists believe they may have found a new planet in the far reaches of the solar system, up to four times the mass of Jupiter. Its orbit would be thousands of times further from the Sun than the Earth’s – which could explain why it has so far remained undiscovered. Data which could prove the existence of Tyche, a gas giant in the outer Oort Cloud, is set to be released later this year – although some believe proof has already been garnered by Nasa with its pace telescope, Wise, and is waiting to be pored over. Prof Daniel Whitmire from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette believes the data may prove Tyche’s existence within two years. He told the Independent: ‘If it does, (fellow astrophysicist Prof John Matese) and I will be doing cartwheels. And that’s not easy at our age.’ He added he believes it will mainly be made of hydrogen and helium, with an atmosphere like Jupiter’s, with spots and rings and clouds, adding: ‘You’d also expect it to have moons. All the outer planets have them.’ He believes the planet is so huge, it will have a raised temperature left from its formation that will make it far higher than others, such as Pluto, at -73C, as ‘it takes an object this size a long time to cool off’. –Daily Mail

No, we don’t believe this is a marauding death star but could rather be the long sought after missing brown-dwarf type planetoid that may be lurking beyond Pluto which could account for the gravational anomalies in the 9th planet’s orbit. Tyche’s only threat to the planet could be its ability to gravitationaly dislodge comets from regions of the Oort cloud and hurl them in the direction of Earth.