With 132 astronomical units, ‘Farfarout’ is the most distant object we have ever found in the solar system

The big picture: Farfarout was first discovered in January 2018 using the Subaru Telescope, an 8-meter telescope located atop a dormant volcano in Hawaii. Over the next several years, co-discoverer Scott Sheppard and his colleagues tracked the object using a variety of telescopes around the world to get a reading in its orbit. They have since confirmed that it is the most distant object ever found in our solar system.

The team has since learned that Farfarout resides 132 astronomical units (AU) of the Sun. A single AU is defined as the distance from the center of the Earth to the center of the Sun, or approximately 91.757 million miles. For comparison, the dwarf planet Pluto is only 34 AU from the Sun.

Farfarout is not to be confused with Farout, another object discovered by Sheppard and his crew that was also found in 2018. It is not as far apart as Farfarout, hence the nomenclature.

Farfarout has a long orbital period, moving very slowly across the sky. As such, it takes 1,000 years to complete an orbit around the Sun. That’s why it took so many years of observations to properly map its trajectory.

Scientists believe that Farfarout may at one point have been much closer to Neptune, or may have come from a more central location within our solar system.

Observations will continue on Farfarout and as scientists gain knowledge about the object, they will work to give it an appropriate name (although I personally don’t see what is wrong with Farfarout).

Credit Masthead Aphelleon