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A research team has discovered a new object far beyond our solar system’s previously known boundaries. The celestial object, provisionally named “2017 OF201”, is located at an enormous distance from the sun, so far that it leaves even Pluto far behind.
Enormous distances beyond our imagination
For comparison, the Earth is one astronomical unit (AU) away from the sun, corresponding to around 150 million kilometers. The object that has now been discovered never comes closer than 44.5 AU to the sun in its elliptical orbit. At its most distant point, it is even 1,600 AU away, corresponding to more than 240 billion kilometers. Such distances are almost impossible to grasp on Earth.
A journey of 25,000 years around the sun
The special thing about 2017 OF201 is its extremely elongated orbit. While Pluto takes around 248 Earth years to complete one orbit around the sun, a “year” on 2017 OF201 takes an incredible 25,000 Earth years.
How this object ended up at the solar system’s edge is still unclear. It may have been thrown into this orbit by a close encounter with a large planet such as Jupiter or Neptune. Another assumption is that it was originally transported into the so-called Oort cloud – a region with ancient ice objects surrounding the solar system like a sphere. However, this cloud has only been considered a theoretical model, as its objects are too faint and distant to observe directly.
New dwarf planet candidate
The Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union officially announced the discovery on May 21. The Center catalogs newly discovered moons and smaller celestial bodies in the solar system. With an estimated diameter of around 700 kilometers (around 435 miles), 2017 OF201 could be classified as a dwarf planet, just like Pluto, which lost its status as a full-fledged planet in 2006.
What’s behind the discovery
The discovery was made under the leadership of Sihao Cheng from the Institute for Advanced Study in the USA. He was supported by students from Princeton University (New Jersey, USA). The team analyzed archive images of two telescopes: the Victor M. Blanco Telescope in Chile (South America) and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii (USA). Using special computer programs, they tracked points of light that moved very slowly in the sky, indicating great distance and low speed.
Traces of a possible “Planet 9”
Originally, Cheng and his team were looking for an as yet undiscovered ninth planet, often referred to as “Planet 9.” This hypothetical celestial body is said to exist far beyond Neptune and, due to its gravity, be responsible for certain arrangements of other objects.
Interestingly, 2017 OF201 does not fit this pattern. It moves differently from other previously known objects in the outer solar system, which could indicate that the so-called “Planet 9” may not even exist. Jiaxuan Li, a team member, also shared this assessment on his website. The group’s scientific analysis was published on the arXiv preprint server.
The edge of the solar system
It used to be assumed that there were not many objects beyond the Kuiper Belt, where Pluto is located. But at the latest, since NASA’s New Horizons probe photographed a distant object called Arrokoth – a red-colored structure in the shape of a dumbbell – in 2019, there has been increasing evidence that there is still much to be discovered.
Incidentally, the probe is still on its way and has not yet reached the actual edge of the solar system. This shows how large the previously unexplored area is. If 2017 OF201 only spends about one percent of its orbital period in places where it is visible at all, one can only imagine how many similar celestial bodies are still undiscovered. Cheng says: “From this one object alone, we can guess that there may be hundreds more that are similarly distant – they’re just not visible to us yet.”
- source: oe24.at/picture: Image by mike lacoste from Pixabay
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