Rodney Gomes, a respected astronomer at the National Observatory of Brazil, is pursuing a theory that another large planet exists at the very edge of the Solar System. He bases his theory on the orbital movements of several small Kuiper Belt objects. The Kuiper Belt is a region of space well beyond the orbit of Neptune. Gomes argues the orbits of those objects cannot be explained by the combined gravitational influences of the known bodies of the Solar System, but can be accounted for by postulating a large body orbiting so far out we have yet to detect it. Depending on the orbit assigned to it, the putative planet could be Mars-sized, or it could be as massive as Neptune, which is four times the mass of Earth.
Other astronomers say Gomes has his math right, but caution there are other possible solutions to the puzzle. One possibility is that more data detailing the orbits of the objects in question will reveal there is in fact no inconsistency at all.
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