Posted on 12/17/2018 1:54:59 PM PST by BenLurkin
The discovery team nicknamed the object "Farout," and its provisional designation from the International Astronomical Union is 2018 VG18. Preliminary research suggests it's a round, pinkish dwarf planet. The same team spotted a faraway dwarf planet nicknamed "The Goblin" in October.
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.
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...
The research team is scoping out these ultradistant objects to search for the gravitational influence of a theorized super-Earth-size Planet Nine, also called Planet X, that researchers have posited orbits in the extreme reaches of the solar system. The movements of several distant bodies have suggested the existence of this planet, which would be extremely faint and hard to locate.
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Far out, Man!......................
You don’t really want to know.....................seriously...............
Gravy and out of state
My faves, highlights of Laugh-In! All the gals...yum!
Trippin!...........................
if a planet revolves where no one is able to journey, do the trees on it still make a sound when they fall?
Only if the rocks have ears.
Groovy!
mugg
Oddly the extreme limits of the suns gravitational belt make a “catching place” for objects that are not of our solar system if they are not of high velocity. If they are of high velocity they just cruise past with slightly different trajectories. There is a lot of strange things far outside of Pluto’s orbit once considered a planet. It is a planet in my estimation but I am not an astronomer.
Unlike most... I think it is very important to find this. One more unforeseen gravitational factor we were not aware of. Thank you.
FYI
Oddly the extreme limits of the suns gravitational belt make a “catching place” for objects that are not of our solar system if they are not of high velocity. If they are of high velocity they just cruise past with slightly different trajectories. There is a lot of strange things far outside of Pluto’s orbit once considered a planet. It is a planet in my estimation but I am not an astronomer.
Thanks. I posted a thread myself earlier on this. Different article, though.
Back in the ‘70s we took the kids to the Palomar observatory. On one large wall was a blow up of the heavens. On the lower left was a tiny dot circled in red with a notation. Thinking it was the farthest star, I went for a closer look. No, not the farthest star, the farthest GALAXY. I stood there stunned as the immensity of space finally sunk in.
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