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Calista241

(5,584 posts)
Tue Oct 2, 2018, 03:07 PM Oct 2018

New dwarf planet spotted at the very fringe of our solar system

Source: Washington Post

A previously unknown dwarf planet circles through the far reaches of our solar system, the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center announced Tuesday. Officially designated 2015 TG387, the small and spherical object is probably a ball of ice. Astronomers first observed the dwarf planet on Oct. 13, 2015, from the Subaru telescope at Hawaii’s Mauna Kea Observatories. Embracing the near-Halloween October spirit — and for want of something pronounceable — its discoverers nicknamed 2015 TG387 “the Goblin.”

The Goblin is “about 300 kilometers in diameter, on the small end of a dwarf planet,” said Scott Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington who discovered the object along with colleagues at Northern Arizona University, University of Hawaii and the University of Oklahoma. Dwarf planet Pluto, by comparison, is six times as wide.

Sheppard has embarked on an ongoing survey to find tiny planetoids on the solar system’s outer rim. He’s interested in the Goblin because it “always stays well beyond the giant planet region,” referring to the lineup of our solar system’s four biggest planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Because 2015 TG387 exists so far away, speaking in terms of miles becomes unwieldy. Instead, astronomers refer to its orbit in astronomical units, or AU, where 1 AU is the distance between the sun and Earth. Pluto sits at an average of 40 AU from the sun. The Goblin comes no closer than 65 AU.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/10/02/new-dwarf-planet-spotted-very-fringe-our-solar-system/

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New dwarf planet spotted at the very fringe of our solar system (Original Post) Calista241 Oct 2018 OP
So cool. PoindexterOglethorpe Oct 2018 #1
Let's name it Trump Novembrist Oct 2018 #2
Wonderful!! Maxheader Oct 2018 #7
I favor the name "Tyrian" MosheFeingold Oct 2018 #3
measuring distance to the sun keithbvadu2 Oct 2018 #4
PLUTO IS A PLANET! The Liberal Lion Oct 2018 #5
As the article says further on, this is important evidence for a big "Planet Nine" muriel_volestrangler Oct 2018 #6

PoindexterOglethorpe

(25,750 posts)
1. So cool.
Tue Oct 2, 2018, 03:38 PM
Oct 2018

I've texted My Son the Astronomer asking him to call me when he's free and tell me all about this.

His area of research is exoplanets, so he's not looking for ones this close, but he'll probably know all about it.

muriel_volestrangler

(101,157 posts)
6. As the article says further on, this is important evidence for a big "Planet Nine"
Wed Oct 3, 2018, 04:35 AM
Oct 2018

somewhere out there, which Sheppard thinks affects the orbits of small things like "the Goblin". He's put the chances for Planet Nine up from 60% to 80%.

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