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.
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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
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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
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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.
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Ping!....................
Name it Hoth
Lots of these things could add up to the extra unknown gravity source.
Klaatu...................
If it’s a third the size of Pluto than it’s not a pl;anet but a planetoid, right?
-SB
“Lots of these things could add up to the extra unknown gravity source.”
That is what they are implying. But the Sumerians could not be wrong... :)
Yes, or an overly large asteroid.
But the question is, “What is it orbiting, out there in the middle of its orbit?”...................
No mention of poipoi, but makemake gets some credit. 🤔
The people there have to wait 25,000 earth years between birthdays.
They age slowly.....................
TNO, I loved their music.
The Trans Neptunian
Orchestra!!!
So now, they want to take our Planet 9 away from us.
“Your Tauntaun will freeze before you reach the first marker!“
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Niribu Ping.
not 100% sure and maybe I missed something in the article as I just scanned it but believe that the only body it orbits is the Sun...
Hillary’s spacecraft has come to take her back home to planet XrazyB*tch
The sun. The more elongated the orbit, the further to one side of the orbit is the object that it’s being orbited around.
The way I read the article, the data come from the world's largest telescopes. The new thing here is making the data available in a secondary (and free) market to interested parties other than the original researchers who paid for the telescope time. As an amateur, you get what you get ... but there's a LOT of what you can get posted on the interwebz.
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