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AN UNKNOWN PLANET ORBITS IN THE OUTER SOLAR SYSTEM some 10 AU from Pluto's 39.5 AU mean distance—to the belt-end's 50-AU distance from the Sun. Pluto's mean orbital distance appears to separate the closer-in eight regular planets from most of the myriad farther-out KBOs. Pluto may be either a KBO or an anomalous, presently inexplicable ninth regular planet. Except for a small number of SKBOs, nothing has been found in the Great Void. The Void extends about 44 AU—from the 50-AU end of the Kuiper belt to the 94-AU end of the solar system. The unknown planet is theorised to be orbiting at 77.2 AU, virtually halfway across the Void. It is postulated as having had sufficient mass, time and gravitational effect during the aeons it has been in orbit to have removed the CKBOs that previously had existed there ever since the solar system first formed. Some scientists postulate a "passing star" to have provided the gravitational influence needed to take out the many CKBOs that had formerly occupied the Void, but a passing star would only have had a single pass and insufficient time during arelatively short period to eliminate all the missing CKBOs. The 94-AU_ solar system end, which also is the outer edge of the Great Void, was detected by NASA's Voyager I space probe in December 2004 when it reached the heliosheath, a —- transitional zone between the solar system and outer space. A sudden increase in magnetic intensity (due to solar wind deceleration) indicated that Voyager J had left the solar system and had entered the heliosheath, where the solar wind was expected to encounter resistance. The 77.2-AU distance from the Sun to the proposed unknown planet is derived from a formula and numerical progression conceived by Johann Titius in 1766 and first published by Johann Bode in 1772— after which it became known as Bode's law. It uses a peculiar formula to derive an enigmatic numerical progression that generally matches the AU distances from the Sun of most solar system entities. The positions of all six planets known in 1766 (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) were consistent with Bode's law, but the formula was largely ignored because it included a planetary space between Mars and Jupiter where no planet existed. theory is hereby proposed that an Ame mega-massive planet has, for billions of years, been orbiting at 77.2 AU [astronomical units] from the Sun—within a 44-AU-wide, virtually empty Great Void that surrounds the Kuiper belt (1 AU = 93 million miles, the mean Earth—Sun distance). The Void is postulated to have been formed by the strong gravitational attraction of the unknown planet having removed all CKBOs (classical Kuiper belt objects) that had existed previously in the vicinity of the massive planet's huge orbit. The Kuiper belt is a doughnut-shaped, 10-AU-wide region surrounding the regular planets that contains possibly trillions of small CKBOs, with some larger than Pluto. CKBOs, which make up approximately 70 per cent of the known KBOs (Kuiper belt objects), orbit the Sun in nearly circular paths that are typically within the ecliptic, the general plane of the solar system. KBOs are primordial lanetesimals that had not coalesced to form planets billions of years ago. Some CKBOs, known as RKBOs (resonant Kuiper belt objects), have been ulled by Neptune's gravity into orbits which resonate with that planet's 165-year orbital period. These comprise about 20 er cent of all KBOs. The SKBOs (scattered Kuiper belt objects) are CKBOs that have been perturbed into highly eccentric, extremely inclined orbits, and they make up roughly 10 per cent of the KBOs within the belt. A small number of SKBOs apparently are the only objects that remain within the Great Void surrounding the Kuiper belt. They may have been near aphelion and far away enough to have avoided being captured whenever the unknown planet had orbited into a suitable position to acquire them. No CKBOs are present beyond 50 AU from the Sun. This evidently is the outer edge of the Kuiper belt, which extends THK U k NT TXTING NT Se merv “Me JUNE — JULY 2007 NEXUS + 49 by Julian Kane © 2007 www.nexusmagazine.com