EUROPE: Astronomers have discovered the farthest object ever in our Solar System at a distance of whopping 15.4 billion kilometers from the Sun using the Subaru telescope in Hawaii.
Dubbed V774104, the newly discovered dwarf planet is said to be between 310 miles and 620 miles across – about half the size of Pluto. The object, which is said to be located in the Oort cloud and located at a distance of 103 astronomical units (AU), now leads the chart of most distant object in our Solar System with Eris, the previous record holder at 97 AU from the Sun, now placed second.
Pegging the discovery of the dwarf planet as a proof that our solar system is much bigger than previously thought, Joseph Burns, professor of engineering and astronomy at Cornell University said that astronomers will require some more time to exactly determine the object’s orbit and exact size.
According to Scott Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., who announced the discovery at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society, the dwarf planet could eventually either become part of a more common population of icy worlds whose orbits can be explained by gravitational interactions with Neptune if it draws closer towards the Sun. If that doesn’t happen, it could join a rare club with two other worlds, Sedna and 2012 VP113, which are the only two confirmed sednoids in the hypothetical Oort cloud.
