Free Republic 3rd Qtr 2025 Fundraising Target: $81,000 Receipts & Pledges to-date: $31,543
38%  
Woo hoo!! And now only $47 to reach 39%!! Thank you all very much!! God bless.

Keyword: 2023kq14

Brevity: Headers | « Text »
  • Astronomers discover a cosmic 'fossil' at the edge of our solar system. Is this bad news for 'Planet 9'?

    07/16/2025 7:07:41 PM PDT · by yesthatjallen · 32 replies
    Space ^ | 07 16 2025 | Robert Lea
    Astronomers have discovered a massive new solar system body located beyond the orbit of Pluto. The weird elongated orbit of the object suggests that if "Planet Nine" exists, it is much further from the sun than thought, or it has been ejected from our planetary system altogether. The strange orbit of the object, designated 2023 KQ14 and nicknamed "Ammonite," classifies it as a "sednoid." Sednoids are bodies beyond the orbit of the ice giant Neptune, known as trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), characterized by a highly eccentric (non-circular) orbit and a distant closest approach to the sun or "perihelion." The closest distance...
  • "Something Extraordinary Occurred": A New 380-Kilometer World Has Been Found In Our Solar System

    07/16/2025 11:28:37 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 35 replies
    IFL Science ^ | July 16, 2025 | James Felton
    Welcome to the neighborhood, Ammonite. The object during observations. Image credit: NAOJ/ASIAA The Subaru telescope located at the Mauna Kea Observatory on Hawai'i has found a new world within our Solar System, dubbed "Ammonite" by the team who found it. In 2003, NASA-funded researchers spotted what was then the most distant object discovered in our Solar System. The dwarf planet, named Sedna after the Inuit goddess of the sea, was found over 12.9 billion kilometers (8 billion miles) from Earth, potentially making it an inner object of the hypothetical "Oort cloud" surrounding our Solar System. "Sedna is distinguished among other...