Posted on 05/23/2025 9:22:44 AM PDT by Red Badger
Astronomers just found a frozen world on a 25,000-year orbit—hidden in plain sight and ready to rewrite the outer solar system.
================================================================
Image Credit: images of dwarf planets from NASA/JPL-Caltech; image of 2017 OF201 from Sihao Cheng et al. | The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel
=================================================================
A distant, icy world has just been added to our solar system’s official roster, and its strange orbit might challenge one of the biggest space mysteries of our time. According to a study published on arXiv, the object—known as 2017 OF201—is not just any distant rock. It’s a trans-Neptunian object (TNO) that could potentially be classified as a dwarf planet, orbiting the Sun once every 25,000 years. The discovery, announced by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center on May 21, 2025, could drastically reshape our understanding of the outer solar system and raise major questions about the controversial Planet 9 hypothesis.
A Hidden Giant in the Outer Solar System
At an estimated 700 kilometers (435 miles) in diameter, 2017 OF201 is roughly a third the size of Pluto, but its orbital path is far more extreme. This icy body travels in an enormous elliptical orbit with a perihelion (its closest approach to the Sun) of 44.5 astronomical units (AU) and an aphelion (its furthest point) of over 1,600 AU—a staggering distance. For context, Earth’s orbit is 1 AU. That vast orbital range means the object is practically invisible to us most of the time. “2017 OF201 spends only 1 percent of its orbital time close enough to us to be detectable. The presence of this single object suggests that there could be another hundred or so other objects with similar orbit and size; they are just too far away to be detectable now,” said Sihao Cheng from the Institute for Advanced Study, who led the discovery team.
Telescope Tech Meets Cosmic Luck
Despite groundbreaking advances in telescope technology, this discovery was not made with a next-gen observatory but with archival data—publicly available records from previous sky surveys. “Even though advances in telescopes have enabled us to explore distant parts of the universe, there is still a great deal to discover about our own Solar System,” Cheng added. The fact that such a significant object remained hidden in plain sight for so long suggests that our own cosmic backyard still holds secrets waiting to be uncovered. The orbit of 2017 OF201 is so extreme and its visibility window so narrow that its discovery required both technical savvy and a bit of astronomical serendipity.
Image showing the current location of Pluto, Neptune, and 2017 OF201. Image Credit: Jiaxuan Li and Sihao Cheng
====================================================================
Planet 9 May Be in Trouble
The orbit of 2017 OF201 doesn’t just add a new name to the solar system; it throws a wrench into the Planet 9 hypothesis—a theory proposing a large, unseen planet far beyond Pluto that influences the orbits of TNOs. While many extreme TNOs appear to be clustered in specific orbital alignments, 2017 OF201 defies this pattern. “Many extreme TNOs have orbits that appear to cluster in specific orientations, but 2017 OF201 deviates from this,” explained Jiaxuan Li from Princeton University, co-author of the discovery. If more objects like this are found—objects that break the clustering pattern—it could dismantle the logic behind Planet 9 altogether. What was once thought to be gravitational proof of a hidden ninth planet might just be statistical noise caused by limited sampling.
The Democratization of Discovery
Perhaps the most inspiring element of this discovery is how it was made. “All the data we used to identify and characterize this object are archival data that are available to anyone, not only professional astronomers,” Li said. “This means that groundbreaking discoveries aren’t limited to those with access to the world’s largest telescopes. Any researcher, student, or even citizen scientist with the right tools and knowledge could have made this discovery, highlighting the value of sharing scientific resources.” In a field often dominated by billion-dollar equipment and elite institutions, this find serves as a powerful reminder: the next big discovery could come from anyone, anywhere—with a laptop and a passion for the stars.
From the article: “It’s a trans-Neptunian object (TNO) that could potentially be classified as a dwarf planet,”
Pluto IS Planet 9! Phooey!
Interesting. But of the news category that, rather than astounding, it’s more of hmmm.
“Just” = eight years ago.
Alrighty then…
(Yeah, I know they spend years analyzing data to predict and confirm such things, but I hate it when articles do this click bait crap with headlines.)
It’s in a rather large elliptical orbit as per the diagram.
The Sun is just one focus. Where is the other?..........
How is that any different than Pluto????
Put Pluto back on the list!!!!
This one actually makes it TEN then.
An ellipse has two focal points............
Maybe if we could “gently” crash a few of these large icy asteroids into Mars, increase its gravitational field, create a nice ocean and atmosphere, we’d be well on our way to some useful terraforming!
Yes. And when an ellipse represents an orbit, one is empty.
All planets have elliptical orbits. There’s nothing at the second focal point.
“2017 OF201”
🤔
Color me suspicious.
If this were a numbered lithograph, it sure would have ‘sketchy’ written all over it.
It’s orbit takes it an order of magnitude further from the sun than the Voyager probes? That’s out there!
Yes, we won’t see it again for while...............
I’m looking forward to how “AI” will be used to go through all the archival data and identify additional items like this in a very short time.
It’s a PupuPlanetary object.
I don’t want to make light of it, but they can’t be ceres about this.
Except that there are many Pluto-like objects orbiting out beyond Neptune. A couple of these are posted in the picture accompanying this post (Haumea and Makemake, for instance). If you count Pluto as a planet, there would be no reason not to count these, as well as some asteroid belt objects like Ceres as well. The new body discovered would not be 10; it would be a much higher number.
These bodies, including Pluto, are fundamentally different from the right recognized planets in terms of their sizes and their ability to clear their orbits of other sizeable bodies. Pluto is more like these bodies than it is like the eight major planets, so it was reclassified to a new designation of dwarf planet, along with these other objects.
It needs a new core. Mars has no magnetic field.
Also, at the Temple of the Sun pyramid in Mexico, there are smaller temples said to represent planets arrayed along the avenue leading to the pyramid. The problem is that there are ten of them
Thay are Aztec
Yes, I have read about that association! I see we have something in common. I highly respect the ancient traditions and do not throw them out with the bath water. You know that the Pyramid Complex is a space port with loading tarmacs right? Large ships cannot hold their own weight on solid ground so loading ramps were needed to reach them. And it was built long long before the Aztecs...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.