Topline<\/p>\n
Astronomers have found a distant celestial body \u2014 potentially a dwarf planet \u2014 orbiting the sun from more than twice as far as Pluto. Found by astronomers at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, it\u2019s one of the most distant solar system bodies observed with optical telescopes. It takes 25,000 years to orbit the sun \u2014 and it could be the first of many new objects to be found in the outer solar system.<\/p>\n
This is an artist’s concept of a craggy piece of solar system debris that belongs to a class of … More bodies called trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs).<\/p>\n
NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI); Science: NASA, ESA, and C. Fuentes (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) <\/p>\n
Key Facts<\/p>\n
2017 OF201 is estimated to be 435 miles (700 kilometers) in diameter. That\u2019s smaller than Pluto\u2019s 1,477 miles (2,377 kilometers), but if its size is confirmed using radio telescopes, 2017 OF201 will become the largest object in the outer solar system found in more than a decade.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s classed as an \u201cextreme\u201d trans-Neptunian object, which is an icy body orbiting beyond Neptune in the solar system. The largest TNOs known are Eris, followed by Pluto, Haumea, Makemake and Gonggong.<\/p>\n
Researchers identified it in 19 different exposures captured over seven years by the Dark Energy Camera (on the summit of Cerro Tololo, Chile) and the Canada France Hawaii Telescope (near the summit of Mauna Kea on Hawaii’s Big Island).<\/p>\n
Image showing the current location of Pluto, Neptune, and 2017 OF201. <\/p>\n
Jiaxuan Li and Sihao Cheng <\/p>\n
Why 2017 Of201 Is So Special<\/p>\n
2017 OF201 is a rare object because of its size, but also its extreme orbit. \u201cThe object\u2019s aphelion \u2014 the farthest point on the orbit from the sun \u2014 is more than 1,600 times that of the Earth\u2019s orbit,\u201d said<\/a> Sihao Cheng at the Institute for Advanced Study\u2019s School of Natural Sciences. \u201cMeanwhile, its perihelion \u2014 the closest point on its orbit to the sun \u2014 is 44.5 times that of the Earth\u2019s orbit, similar to Pluto’s orbit.\u201d<\/p>\n It takes 2017 OF201 about 25,000 years to complete one orbit of the sun, which suggests a chaotic past. \u201cIt must have experienced close encounters with a giant planet, causing it to be ejected to a wide orbit,\u201d said Yang. “It\u2019s possible that this object was first ejected to the Oort cloud, the most distant region in our solar system, which is home to many comets, and then sent back.”<\/p>\n First Of Many New Trans-Neptunian Objects<\/p>\n 2017 OF201 exists at the edge of the solar system in what\u2019s known as the Kuiper Belt, a vast ring-shaped region beyond the orbit of Neptune. It was thought that the Kuiper Belt was largely empty of large objects \u2014 but 2017 OF201 indicates that is not the case. That\u2019s underscored by the fact that 2017 OF201 spends only 1% of its orbital time close enough to the inner solar system to be detectable. \u201cThe presence of this single object suggests that there could be another hundred or so other objects with similar orbit and size; they are just too far away to be detectable now,\u201d said Cheng. \u201cEven though advances in telescopes have enabled us to explore distant parts of the universe, there is still a great deal to discover about our own solar system.\u201d<\/p>\n Revealing The Kuiper Belt<\/p>\n In September 2004, scientists announced<\/a> that they had uncovered 11 new objects beyond the accepted edge of the Kuiper Belt. They were found in alcluster while using the 8.2-meter Subaru Telescope in Hawaii to find new targets for NASA\u2019s New Horizons spacecraft, which left Earth in 2006 and conducted the only ever flyby of Pluto in 2015 before entering the Kuiper Belt.<\/p>\n Further ReadingForbesWhen To See June\u2019s \u2018Strawberry Moon,\u2019 The Lowest Full Moon Since 2006By Jamie Carter<\/a> <\/p>\n ForbesIn Photos: Strawberry Moon Skims Horizon In Once-In-A-Generation EventBy Jamie Carter<\/a>
\nForbesWebb Telescope Photographs \u2018Strange\u2019 Cold Planet Around Nearby StarBy Jamie Carter<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Topline Astronomers have found a distant celestial body \u2014 potentially a dwarf planet \u2014 orbiting the sun from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[77336,77337,77340,70643,77338,32876,77339,49667,70,12884,77341,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-188425","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-2017-of201","9":"tag-dwarf-planet","10":"tag-neptune","11":"tag-oort-cloud","12":"tag-planet-9","13":"tag-planet-nine","14":"tag-planet-x","15":"tag-pluto","16":"tag-science","17":"tag-solar-system","18":"tag-trans-neptunian-object","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114691898407334554","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}