An international team of astronomers including researchers from the University of British Columbia has discovered a new dwarf planet orbiting in the disk of small icy worlds beyond Neptune. (sciencedaily.com)
It also predicts that no large planets would have formed in the Kuiper belt, the region of small icy worlds in which Pluto resides. (sciencemag.org)
It envisions the great reshuffling as a brief, violent affair that not only put the outer planets where they are today but also created the Kuiper belt of small icy bodies beyond Neptune, gave the planets scores of oddly orbiting moons, and bombarded the solar system with a rain of asteroids and comets so fierce that it would have cooked all but the deepest subterranean life on early Earth. (science.sciencemag.org)