Subaru Telescope Discovers a New Extremely Distant Solar System Object During Hunt for Planet X
October 3, 2018
Last updated: January 19, 2023
Using Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) on the Subaru Telescope, astronomers have discovered a new object at the edge of our Solar System. The new extremely distant object far beyond Pluto has an orbit that supports the presence of an even-farther-out Super-Earth, or larger Planet X.
The discovery of the newly found object, called 2015 TG387, was made by Carnegie Institution for Sciences' Scott Sheppard, Northern Arizona University's Chad Trujillo, and the University of Hawai'i Institute for Astronomy's David Tholen. 2015 TG387 was discovered about 80 astronomical units (au) from the Sun. One AU is the distance between the Earth and Sun. For context, Pluto is around 34 au, so 2015 TG387 is about two and a half times further away from the Sun than Pluto is right now.
"The objects we're looking for are both faint and can be pretty much anywhere in the sky, so the ability to reach a faint limiting magnitude (large aperture) and cover a large amount of sky (wide field) is crucial for this work. The Subaru Telescope with its wide-field imaging camera Hyper Suprime-Cam is the facility best suited for this work," says Tholen
The object was discovered as part of the team's ongoing hunt for unknown dwarf planets and Planet X. It is the largest and deepest survey ever conducted for distant Solar System objects.
"These distant objects are like breadcrumbs leading us to Planet X. The more of them we can find, the better we can understand the outer Solar System and the possible planet that we think is shaping their orbits – discovery that would redefine our knowledge of the Solar System's evolution," Sheppard added.
https://subarutelescope.org/en/results/2018/10/03/2727.html
http://archive.today/2023.01.28-053636/https://subarutelescope.org/en/results/2018/10/03/2727.html