There are eight planets in our solar system – plus poor old Pluto, which was demoted in 2006 – but what if there were more? Turns out that might be the case. Astronomers have calculated there is a 7 per cent chance that Earth has another neighbour hiding in the Oort cloud, a spherical region of ice chunks and rocks that is tens of thousands of times farther from the sun than we are. “It’s completely plausible for our solar system to have captured such an Oort cloud planet,” said Nathan Kaib, a co-author on the work and an astronomer at the Planetary Science Institute. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Hidden worlds like this are “a class of planets that should definitely exist but have received relatively little attention” until now, he said.. If a planet is hiding in the Oort cloud, it’s almost certainly an ice giant. Large planets like Jupiter and Saturn are generally born as twins. They have huge gravitational pulls of their own, however, and sometimes destabilise one another. That could have led to a planet to be nudged out of the solar system entirely – or exiled to its outer reaches, where the Oort cloud resides. “The survivor planets have eccentric orbits, which are like the scars from their violent pasts,” said lead author Sean Raymond, researcher at the University of Bordeaux’s Astrophysics Laboratory. That means that the Oort cloud planet could have a significantly elongated orbit, unlike the near-perfect circle Earth tracks around the sun. Trouble is, when things are that far away, they’re pretty difficult to spot. “It would be extremely hard to detect,” added Raymond. “If a Neptune-sized planet existed in our own Oort cloud, there’s a good chance that we wouldn’t have found it yet,” said Malena Rice, an astronomer at MIT not involved in this work. “Amazingly, it can sometimes be easier to spot planets hundreds of light-years away than those right in our own backyard.” Time to crack out the telescope. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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Novak Djokovic made a surprise appearance at the Ballon d’Or awards on 30 October to present one of the trophies – but not everybody was happy with the tennis player’s inclusion. The Serb was selected to present the 2023 Ballon d'Or Feminin award to Aitana Bonmati, the Spain and Barcelona star. Bonmati won the top women’s trophy ahead of England’s Mary Earps and others, while Lionel Messi took his record eighth men’s award at the ceremony in Paris. The midfielder enjoyed a landmark year as an instrumental part of both a Champions League winning side in Barcelona, and her World Cup-winning country of Spain. Djokovic was invited on-stage, where he spoke about his own connections to football, and the fact that his decision to choose tennis instead was “a good choice”. Then, he gave the award to Bonmati. However, fans were furious that she had to receive the award from Djokovic, who has in the past criticised campaigns for equal pay between men and women’s sports. Football journalist Tim Stillman said: “Nothing says ‘celebrate the achievement of female athletes’ like inviting a male athlete who advocated against equal pay to talk about himself and the completely different sport he plays.” Another person said: “Wow they got a male athlete from a completely different sport to present the trophy to the winner? Who’s going to present the men’s trophy? Coco Gauff? Tahlia McGrath? No, didn’t think so.” One other added: “Way to disrespect women’s football btw. Get somebody who’s won it before, a legend of the game, an ally, at the very least a male FOOTBALLER. Who is Djokovic and what’s he done to football in general let alone women’s football.” Elsewhere, people were frustrated at the lack of gender parity between the categories of the various awards. There is no women’s trophy for best goalkeeper, best striker, or best young player as there are for the men’s game. One user wrote: “Ballon d'Or 2023 - No awards for: Women's U21 player, Women's Gerd Muller, Women's Lev Yashin. “The Women's award was presented by Novak Djokovic, a player who made it all about him rather than Aitana Bonmati. “Utter disgrace”. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings

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