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Illustration by Roberto Molar Candanosa / Carnegie Scientific Institution
A team of astronomers discovered the most extreme Transnational object located outside the solar system. Called Farout, the object has a distance 120 times greater than the trajectory between the Sun and the Earth. Given the preliminary estimates of its size, this object may well be a dwarf planet, but it is still too small to be described as mysterious Planet X.
• When are we going to find Planet X?
A recently discovered object was announced this Monday (17) by the Center of Small Planets of the International Astronomical Union. It will still take many years of observation to fully characterize the object and its orbit, but the IAU has already inserted it into its database bearing the tentative name 2018 VG18, as well as his contact information and his observation notes. Farout, as he was nicknamed, was discovered by astronomer Scott S. Sheppard of the Carnegie Institute of Science and by his colleagues at the University of Hawaii and the University of Northern Arizona
Astronomers have observed the Farout for the first time in November 10, 2018, using the Japanese Subaru telescope, featuring an 8-meter lens and located at the top of Mauna Kea in Hawaii. The object was then observed again in early December with the Magellan telescope at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. These multiple observations, in addition to confirming the object, were used to establish their trajectory in the night sky, as well as their size, brightness and color.
UA Distance Scale; Farout has 120 AU. This extreme Transnetunian object is about 120 AU (astronomical units, or AU, of the Earth), 1 AU being the average distance between the Earth and the Sun (about 149 million kilometers). Farout is so far that it takes 16 hours and 40 minutes of sun to cover 18 billion kilometers.
"2018 The VG18 is the first object discovered beyond 100 AU in our solar system," Sheppard told Gizmodo. "It moves so slowly that it will take years to see enough motion to determine the orbit of this object around the Sun."
Sheppard and his colleagues would not be surprised that a year of Farout lasts over 1,000 years on Earth. .
By comparison, Pluto is at a distance of 34 AU from the sun, so Farout is 3.5 km away. Eris (with 96 AU) and Goblin were discovered earlier this year with 90 AU.
Astronomers still do not know much about the physical characteristics of Farout, because its signal is very weak [19659003] "On the basis of its luminosity and its distance, its diameter is probably between 500 and 600 km. At this size, gravity will dominate whatever material force the object may have and must therefore have a spherical shape, "said Sheppard. "This would clbadify it as a dwarf planet.The color of the object is between pink and red, suggesting that it has an icy surface.The ice usually takes on that reddish hue after being irradiated for long periods by solar radiation. "
Images showing VG18 2018 on November 10, 2018. Images were taken at an interval of one hour. Farout was discovered as part of the quest for the distant Planet Nine, sometimes also called Planet X. It is thought that this hypothetical planet exists outside the realm of the solar system because of the way the other objects of the Kuper Belt are oriented. But as Sheppard points out, Farout should not be Planet X, because it is thought to be much larger than the new object found.
"Planet X must be much larger than the Earth to gravitate to other smaller objects around it and lead them to similar types of orbits," says Sheppard. "Planet X also seems to be even more distant with a few hundred of AU's."
It is reasonable to imagine how this object has moved away from our solar system and astronomers will not know the answer to this question before Farout's orbit can be determined.
"If its orbit brings it closer to [do Sistema Solar] at a given moment, like Neptune or one of the other giant planets, it is likely that it has moved out of its current location and gravitates into interacting orbit. with a planet like Neptune, "said Sheppard. "If your orbit never approaches a giant planet in our solar system, the question of how it got there becomes an important issue, which would suggest that Planet X pushed you to that great distance." [19659003] The results will be encouraging. the first will help us better understand the history of the solar system, while the second hypothesis would bring us more evidence of the existence of the planet X.
In the final amusement, send a probe to Farout not would not be such a bad idea. The New Horizons spacecraft is currently scheduled to visit Ultima Thule, an object far from the Kuiper belt on the day of the turn, and its speed of movement is 58,500 km / h. At this speed, it would take between 35 and 40 years for a probe to leave the Earth and reach Farout. NASA should perhaps think of something when planning the next generation of space missions.
[Carnegie Science]
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