Fifth planet (hypothetical) 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, as asteroids were discovered, they were considered planets. Jupiter became the sixth planet with the discovery of Ceres in 1801. Soon, three more asteroids, Pallas (1802), Juno (1804), and Vesta (1807) were discovered. They were counted as separate planets, despite the fact that they shared an
Five-planet Nice model distant massive ninth planet is responsible for the alignment of the perihelia of several trans-Neptunian objects with semi-major axes greater than 250 AU. Although the mechanism for the ejection of the fifth giant planet in the five-planet Nice model is reminiscent of the origin of Planet Nine, with a gravitational instability including an encounter with Jupiter, it is unlikely to be the same planet. The estimated timing of the capture of Planet Nine onto its distant orbit, three to ten million years after the formation of the Solar System, when the Sun was still in its birth cluster, is inconsistent