A celestial body 'Far Out' existing at the very end of the solar system is discovered, the first observation is 'Japanese Subaru Telescope'

The Asteroid Center of the International Astronomical Union Association announced on December 17, 2018 that the objects of the solar system far away from the sun have been found so far. The discovered celestial body " 2018 VG 18 " revolves more than 100 times the distance between the earth and the sun, and is nicknamed " Farout ".

Discovered: The Most-Distant Solar System Object Ever Observed | Carnegie Institution for Science
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Furuto was discovered by Scott S. Sheppard et al., A researcher at the Carnegie Institute, and it is seen as a celestial body equivalent to a dwarf planet with a diameter of about 500 km. On November 10, 2018, the Japanese Subaru telescope at the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii discovered its existence, after which the Magellan telescope of the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile was observing and the trajectory, brightness, color, etc. were being investigated It was.

In the world of astronomy, the distance between the sun and the earth is converted to " astronomical unit (AU)" to represent the distance of the celestial body, and as a result of the observation, it turned out that the distance between the sun and furout reaches as much as 120 AU . The farthest astronomical object that has been found so far is a dwarf planet Ellis with an elliptical orbital of about 38 AU to 98 AU and furout is the first discovered "solar system celestial body more than 100 AU" for the first time in history.

The figure below shows the distance relationship of the solar system. The sun is shining on the left and the earth is located several places away from there. Pluto has been downgraded from a planet to a dwarf planet in 2006, 34 AU and furout is more than three times more away.

Far-out is a dwarf planet with mass enough to become a sphere by its own gravity and its diameter is about 500 km. The appearance seems to be somewhat pinkish color, which means that it is a heavenly body that is far from the sun and contains a lot of ice. The period required for circling the sun " revolution cycle " is considered to be about 1000 years. David Tholen, a member of the research team, stated that "2018 VG18 is currently far apart from the sun, its approximate diameter, and color, only what we know about 2018 VG18", calculated the trajectory It shows the prospect that it will take many years to completely identify it.

This discovery was brought about in studies on distant objects that belong to the solar system, including the unknown solar system ninth planet "Planet Nine". By the way Planet Nine is considered to take about 1000 more time to discover due to conditions such as positional relationships.

It takes 1000 years to discover the unknown planet "Planet Nine" of the solar system - GIGAZINE