Fifth planet (hypothetical) into the Sun. Unlike the Disruption Theory's fifth planet, "Planet V" is not credited with creating the asteroid belt. The concept of a fifth planet which had been destroyed to make the asteroid belt, as in the Disruption Theory, has been a popular one in fiction. Fifth planet (hypothetical) In the history of astronomy, a handful of Solar System bodies have been counted as the fifth planet from the Sun. Under the present definition of a planet, Jupiter is counted as the fifth. There are three main ideas regarding hypothetical planets between Mars and Jupiter. During the early 19th century,
Formation and evolution of the Solar System from the Sun, accretion was too slow to allow planets to form before the solar nebula dispersed, and thus the initial disc lacked enough mass density to consolidate into a planet. The Kuiper belt lies between 30 and 55 AU from the Sun, while the farther scattered disc extends to over 100 AU, and the distant Oort cloud begins at about 50,000 AU. Originally, however, the Kuiper belt was much denser and closer to the Sun, with an outer edge at approximately 30 AU. Its inner edge would have been just beyond the orbits of Uranus and Neptune, which were