These Are the Hidden Planets Beyond Pluto You Have Never Heard Of

When we think of the solar system, most of us can recognise the eight major planets. From the desolate Mercury, all the way out to the ice giant Neptune. Then there is Pluto, possibly the most loved world of them all. And beyond that, you will remember the icy snowman shaped object named Arrokoth, that NASA's New Horizons spacecraft visited back in 2019. But our solar system doesn't end there. Beyond, many more Pluto-sized worlds exist, such as the dwarf planets Eris, Makemake or Haumea for example. However, within this region known as the Kuiper Belt, and then the scattered disk just beyond, other large, icy, magnificent worlds have also been discovered. Worlds that are most likely dwarf planets, but that are yet to be officially classified. These are the planets of our solar system that you may have never heard of before. You're watching V101 Space, my name's Rob and if you enjoy my videos, then remember to subscribe and tap the notification bell to never miss an upload. While the International Astronomical Union, who were responsible for demoting Pluto, currently only recognise five dwarf planets in our solar system, in reality, the cold regions beyond Neptune are likely populated by many of these bizarre worlds. According to the IAU, to be classed as a dwarf planet, an object must orbit the sun, is not a moon, has enough mass for gravity to assume a near-round shape, but has not cleared its neighbourhood of other objects in its orbit. The latter being one of the reasons why Pluto was demoted, and the dwarf planet classification was created. The regions beyond Neptune, called the Kuiper Belt and the scattered disk are full of icy bodies, the remnants of the solar system's formation billions of years ago. While not officially classified yet, beyond Neptune, many potential dwarf planets have already been discovered, each with their own unique characteristics. This is Gongong, a world discovered in 2007 and named after a Chinese water god who was blamed for knocking the Earth's axis off-centre and causing great floods. With an estimated diameter of about 1,230 km, Gongong is one of the largest known trans-Neptunian objects discovered so far. At around half the size of Pluto, this mysterious world orbits the sun once every 554 Earth years. In fact, most of the time Gongong is many billions of kilometres away in a highly elliptical orbit. At its farthest point, it is more than 100 times farther from the sun than Earth. One of the most striking features of Gongong is its red surface, which is likely due to the presence of tholins, which are complex organic molecules that form when simpler compounds such as methane are bombarded by cosmic rays and ultraviolet light. Tholins are known to give a reddish or brownish hue to the surfaces of many distant icy bodies in the solar system such as Arrokoth, the Kuiper Belt object that New Horizons visited in 2019, or even those beautiful distinctive reddy-brown areas on Pluto, for example. It was discovered in 2010 that Gongong also has a companion, a dwarf moon named Shang-Lu, as these Hubble Space Telescope images reveal. Named after the nine-headed snake monster from Chinese mythology, the moon's size is estimated to be only about 100 km in diameter, and its orbit around Gongong also suggests that it may be the result of an ancient collision, similar to how our own moon formed perhaps. Interestingly, it has been calculated that by using a gravity assist from Jupiter in the early 2030s with a spacecraft similar to NASA's New Horizons that visited Pluto, it would take around 25 years to reach Gongong, possibly giving us some incredible images of one of the farthest known objects in the solar system within the next 35 years or so. This is Quahua, a world discovered in 2002 and named after the creation deity of the Native American Tongva tribe. With a diameter of approximately 1090 km, it is, like Gongong, one of the larger potential dwarf planets, at nearly half the diameter of Pluto. But unlike Gongong, Quahua doesn't have a highly elliptical orbit. Instead, it has a nearly circular orbit that takes around 289 years to complete one rotation around the sun. It also is a lot closer than Gongong, with an average distance of 6.5 billion km from the sun, similar to Pluto's distance in fact. In July 2016, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft actually captured a sequence of four images of Quahua from a distance of about 2 billion km, providing us with a different perspective and the closest images ever taken of this potential dwarf planet. But even at this range, Quahua can still only be seen as a moving white dot in front of a black background of bright stars and galaxies, a reminder of how difficult it is to study these elusive worlds. Like many other Kuiper Belt objects, Quahua has a relatively large moon named Weiwot after the son of the Tongva creator god. But one feature that surprised astronomers about Quahua was that it has a ring of icy This discovery was unexpected, as rings were previously thought to be stable only within a certain distance from the host body, known as the Roche limit. Quahua's rings, however, lie outside this limit, challenging the existing theories about ring stability and formation. Another fascinating feature of Quahua is its unusual, slightly oblong or egg-like shape, rather than being mostly spherical. This shape could result from a rapid rotation, which might cause it to stretch slightly at the equator. Again, like Gongon, a flyby mission of Quahua could happen by using a Jupiter gravity assist. A spacecraft with a gravity boost would only take 13.6 years to arrive there, and launch dates for such a mission have been proposed as early as December 2026. So we may get to see close-ups of this mysterious object sooner than we think. This is Orcus, a world discovered in 2004 and named after one of the Roman gods of the underworld, which is fitting, as it is also often referred to as the anti-Pluto, due to its orbit being a mirror image of Pluto's, but on the opposite side of the sun. It takes around 245 years to complete one orbit, to Pluto's 248 years, and it even has a relatively large moon, a companion named Vanth. As you can see in this incredible real footage captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, the dwarf moon Vanth is, like Pluto's moon Charon, relatively large compared to its parent, at 475km in diameter. But although Orcus shares many similarities with Pluto, it is nowhere near as large, estimated to be around 910km in diameter, making Orcus less than half the size of Pluto, but not too much smaller than Quawar. Nonetheless, this mysterious world still potentially meets the IAU's dwarf planet criteria. Interestingly, its surface colour is predominantly neutral to slightly red, rather than the dark red we have seen a lot of so far, indicating the presence of a mix of water ice and organic compounds. The relatively neutral colouration suggests that it has a younger or less weathered surface compared to the other potential dwarf planets Gongong and Quawar, which may be the result of cryovolcanism. At some point in the past, this mysterious world could have been geologically active, with cryovolcanoes spewing out ice magma upon its frozen landscape. With its significant size, unique characteristics and the presence of its relatively large moon Vanth, Orcus, like many others, is a prime candidate for dwarf planet status. These are just three of the larger, unconfirmed dwarf planets in our solar system that you may have not heard of before, but there are many others, such as Sedna, Celesia, Varda or Ixion for example, that granted require more studying but probably do meet the dwarf planet's classification according to the IAU's criteria. As astronomers continue to explore and study these enigmatic objects, we move closer to understanding the vast and varied collection of fascinating bodies that exist at the edge of the solar system. Just think back to how surprised we all were when for the first time we saw Pluto up close, and then remember that each one of these unclassified dwarf planets could offer perhaps even more. I hope you enjoyed this video, if you did then remember to subscribe and tap the like button for much more to come. Thank you for watching and I'll see you next time.