Is it possible there is a habitable planet on the opposite side of the sun?

Question

I think that it is more likely there is a habitable planet on the opposite side of the sun than there are aliens coming from 1000's of light years away. Also this would sense because they would visit us because we could potentially hurt there planet if we destroy ours.

Answer 1

no, we would have found that planet already, BUT

I agree with you about aliens NOT traveling 1000s of light years to earth only to abduct Bubba and do an anal probe on him, then leave.

if they came, we'd know it. they don't use that much energy and intelligence to come to earth to play games.

they'd either teach us, use us, or destroy us and take over.

the possibility of life being found on another planet in our solar system is MUCH higher than the possibility that Aliens perform anal probes on hillbillies.

Take mars for example....... we're still looking for life on it after 4 attempts...... and the predictions seems to raise our odds.

Answer 2

No. It's a good concept for science fiction. In fact, so good that it has already been used in science fiction books and movies many years ago.

In the accretion of matter during the planetary formations out of the solar system nebula. It would be very unlikely for two objects to form on opposite sides of the Sun and obtain exactly the same AU distance. Evidence would show that none of the other planetary bodies in our Solar System have such a 'twin' in their orbital path. We could transpose the hypothesis and state that if such a hypothetical planet had NOT formed, then this would infer that Earth would be twice it's current size and mass. Very unlikely. There is a reason why Earth is similar in size to Venus. The amount of matter accreted in this part of the Solar System was similar for Earth and Venus. Odds are also very much against the possibility of a planet the same size and mass as Earth being 'captured' into the exact same AU orbit. Satellites have not detected such a planet. Perturbations upon Venus and Mars would be measureable. No such perturbations have ever occured. Space probes sent to Venus, Mars and other places could not have successfully flown by or landed on their targets if a Counter-Earth existed, as it was not accounted for in navigational calculation. Earth's orbit is not circular but slightly elliptical with the ellipticity cycling over a 100,000 year period. It would be impossible for your hypothetical planet to exactly match such an orbit. Having a Counter-Earth at the Lagrange Point, L3 would cause instability in both planetary orbits causing both Earths to quickly drift away from their positions and the orbits would cease to be regular.

It is fun to think of things that could be. But most of the time, the real world is not as fanciful as what we can imagine. If aliens do exist, they can not come from a planet on the opposite side of the Sun from Earth. Such a planet scientifically can not and does not exist.

Answer 3

It is clearly impossible. Not because you could detect it from earth but because of the telescopes that have been sent into space. The earth rotates around the sun in 365 days. In 180 days the satellite would have been able to see the planet clearly. Some (such as Hubble) have been in space for years as all of the planets are rotating. (That is if it was following the same orbit always 180degrees away from earth on the opposite side of the sun. If it followed a different path it would have been discovered Years ago colliding with the earth or having a gravational pull on another planet.

Answer 4

That would be interesting if there are one. I also ever think about the same things, and there are science fiction that tell about artificially made planetary system with 12 planets orbiting a star in the same orbit, we call such planetary system Kemplerer Rosette.

Natural Kemplerer Rosette will be very rare because it require all the planet in the system to have adjusted distance and tangential speed. Twin planet orbiting each other will be more common.

Anyway it is already confirmed that there is no another earth in the opposite side of the sun. Voyager missions have flew far away from earth that it should have detected the existence of such planet.

Answer 5

Not possible for there to be a planet on the 'opposite side' of the sun. First of all Earth circles around the sun so we'd have seen such a planet long ago. Even if such a planet had an orbit that kept it always on the far side of the sun from us, we'd have detected its gravitational influence on Mercury and Venus.

Answer 6

There was a movie called "Journey to the far side of the Sun", which I saw in my youth, which was based on this scenario. Supposedly another Earth-like planet was orbiting the Sun exactly in our orbital track, but just the opposite, thus it was always behind the Sun from our vantagepoint, and thus undetected (I forget how we did see it).

Regardless, this is not possible due to the Earth's elliptical orbit. Since the Earth orbits at an increasing speed until it reaches Perihelion (about the 4th of January) and then gradually slows until Aphelion (about the 4th of July), at some time we would catch up enough in our orbit to see such a planet, or slow enough for it to catch up to us enough to appear to one side of the Sun. Also it would have an unstable orbit.

Answer 7

What do you mean by the opposite side of the sun?
Don't you know what our solar system looks like?
We are quite aware of the planets orbiting our sun, especially any in the habitable zone, which is only Earth, that can sustain water as solid, liquid and gas.

Answer 8

Any planet in the same one year orbit as Earth but 180 degrees around the orbit from Earth would be in an unstable position and would drift over time to one of the stable Lagrange points 60 degrees ahead of or behind Earth in its orbit, where it would remain and be clearly visible from Earth.

Answer 9

It would be possible for a planet of the same mass as the earth and at the same distance from the sun to orbit undetected by astronomers.
The chances of course are virtually zero and there would be no chance that it would be inhabited by intelligent beings.
But what the hell you can ask.

Answer 10

There is no opposite side to the sun. The earth circles it, and I think we'd know if there WAS a habitable planet there.