Have we found all the planets in the solar system, or are there others out there waiting to be discovered?

Question

Have we found all the planets in the solar system, or are there others out there waiting to be discovered?

Answer 1

According to the IAU's definition of 'planet' - we've found all the planets we'll find in our solar system.  The object must be the "gravitational bully" of it's orbit.  For Mercury's orbit, a little rock will do.  But after Neptune you need something even bigger than Neptune.  It's not gonna happen.

There are much better definitions of 'planet' though.  With some of them, there are already over 40 planets, and good chances that more will be found.

Answer 2

Depends what you mean my planets.  They've recently demoted Pluto because they've found a bigger lump of rock in a near orbit.  All the big ones have been discovered, but there are millions of items orbiting our sun and we've barely started cataloguing them all.

Answer 3

Given the new definition of "planet" - N.B. pluto is no longer considered a planet, I think it is unlikely but possible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetoid

Answer 4

simply put, the fact that we haven't explored the oort cloud enough we may run into new planets of the solar system. Space is ever expanding and infinite with many new phenomena to be discovered

Answer 5

probalbly others but NASA thinks their too far to be discovered.

Answer 6

Bills more to be found, many will never be found.

Answer 7

Every day almost, new asteroids and Kuiper Belt objects are being discovered. Our Earth-based telescopes are getting stronger all the time, but the atmosphere will always cause interference. Therefore, many will not be found, either by Earth-based equipment, or at all.

Answer 8

The 8 major planets have all been discovered.

However, the minor planets of the Kuiper Belt may not have all been discovered yet.

We currently only have records of Ceres, Pluto and Eris as dwarf planets.

Answer 9

Statistically, we expect to find one (maybe two) large planet(s) beyond Pluto's orbit, then that's it.  

According to the most popular theory on the formation of the solar system, most of the formation of planets took place before the sun turned on and the light junk was pushed out (by the pressure of light) to form the Oort cloud.  Some of the junk may have since assembled to form a planet (or two at most).

It is this "statistically promised" planet, not yet discovered, that is called Planet X by the astronomers.  I suspect that we will need to find more dwarf planets first, then calculate the major perturbations in their orbits in order to find out where to look for this new planet.

It has nothing to do with the fake planet x linked to the Big 2012 Hoax Off.

Answer 10

well theirs that sea they wanna get right at the bottom of to see whats there

Answer 11

There may well still be some more "plutoid" type little planets, but the major ones in our solar system have been discovered.

Answer 12

Strictly speaking, a planet is an object that is massive enough to become rounded, and has cleared its orbit of any other smaller bodies (not including moons). That is why Pluto has recently been declassified as a planet and now is a so-called 'dwarf planet', since it does not adhere to the second part of that definition. That is also why any bodies in the Kuiper belt or Oort Cloud won't be planets, even though they might be on a scale similar or larger to Pluto.

But if you're wondering whether there are any large, planet-like bodies yet to be discovered then the answer is almost certainly yes, since the Oort cloud is estimated to contain something like 1 trillion objects, and some of them will be pretty big

Answer 13

well it's a contradition theory really, if we found them all or think we found them all, we wouldn't think there were more to be discovered, but you never know until you do find another, which required searching for in the first place. :o)