A New Space Discovery That Is Far Out!

belovebelight (58)in #space • 6 years ago (edited)

A new discovery that is FAR OUT!

Literally! An object in space has been found to be the "most-distant body ever observed in the solar system — and the first object ever found orbiting at more than 100 times the distance from Earth to the sun." This was reported by Space.com. They also reported that this roughly 500 km in diameter object that has a pinkish color is alluded to be a dwarf planet they are calling Farout.

Farout is 120 astronomical units (AU) from the sun — one AU is the distance between Earth and the sun, which is about 93 million miles (150 million kilometers). The object is more than 3.5 times the current distance between Pluto and the sun (34 AU), and it outpaces the previous farthest-known solar system object, the dwarf planet Eris, which is currently about 96 AU from the sun. NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft recently entered interstellar space at about 120 AU, leaving the sun's 'sphere of influence' called the heliopause, where bodies experience the solar wind.

To be clear: The record Farout now holds is for the most-distant solar system body ever observed. That doesn't mean no other objects gets farther away from the sun than 120 AU. In fact, we know some that do. The dwarf planet Sedna gets more than 900 AU away on its highly elliptical orbit, for example, and there are probably trillions of comets in the Oort Cloud, which lies between about 5,000 AU and 100,000 AU from the sun.

Source

I'm sure the name has a more interesting story or meaning behind it. I just couldn't resist! Due to its farther distance and slower rate it moves, it will take a considerable amount of time to determine its orbit. Another interesting point Space.com reported was the following:

Because the proposed Planet 9 is so distant — between hundreds and thousands of AU, researchers told Space.com, the planet can alter the orbits of objects far too distant to be strongly influenced by the inner solar-system planets. That means that looking for trends in the orbits of objects like Farout can point the way to the mysterious planet, giving researchers hints of where to look for it and chances to test the powerful telescopes that might someday spot it.

This is a pretty interesting discovery. What do you all think about this?

Note: All images not cited are my own or created by me.