FarFarOut Might Be the Most Distant Object in the Solar System

by Ryan Whitwam

The first image of FarFarOut comes from Scott Sheppard, the Carnegie Institution astronomer who also spotted FarOut last year. FarOut was already quite distant at 120 AU (1 AU or astronomical unit is the distance between Earth and the sun), which is almost 20 light hours. Initial observations of FarFarOut suggest it’s about 140 AU away. Pluto is a mere 34 AU away, and the most distant dwarf Planet known as Eris is at 96 AU.

It will take additional observations over months or years to determine FarFarOut’s exact orbit. It’s so far away, a single solar year for the dwarf planet is over 1,000 Earth years. We don’t know what it looks like — that’s technically a depiction of FarOut at the top, but it doesn’t matter since we’re just guessing at that, too. More researchers will need to confirm the findings before we can even be sure FarFarOut is really there. Only then can we give it a name — it doesn’t even have a minor planet designation yet.

The Carnegie Institution team is really racking up these dwarf planet discoveries, but that’s not why it’s scanning the edge of the solar system. Sheppard and colleagues are looking for larger Earth-like planets in the outer solar system. This theorized “Planet Nine” could explain some of the orbital oddities seen in TNOs. It’s also possible there is no Planet Nine, and the clustering of TNO orbits is simply a product of the cumulative gravity from numerous objects like FarFarOut. In either case, discovering dwarf planets is still pretty impressive.

Now read:

Related posts:

Apart from sharing in the Rigel Protocol dream of a decentralised future, At present, there are a dazzling array of wallet products on the market, such as Casa/XDEFI/imtoken/ZenGo, etc. Many wallets…

Not since the Fat Controller waved Thomas the Tank Engine off on his inaugural journey has there been so much railway activity in the UK. At the turn of the Century we saw the completion of the…

First impressions can be made in a span of a couple seconds, sometimes even before a word is even exchanged. This ultimately means that an individual can be labeled as lazy because of their laxed…