Exciting Discovery: Giant Minor Planet Found Beyond Pluto—One of the Solar System’s Largest Distant Objects!

There’s a fascinating new object in our solar system, and it’s not your typical space rock. Meet 2017 OF201, a minor planet that’s actually one of the largest found so far. This celestial body has an orbit that takes it far beyond what we call home.

The International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center added 2017 OF201 to its catalog on May 21. This minor planet measures between 290 and 510 miles (470 to 820 kilometers) across. At its largest, it’s similar in size to Ceres, the biggest asteroid in the belt between Mars and Jupiter, which is about 592 miles (952 km) wide.

A team led by Sihao Cheng from the Institute for Advanced Study discovered 2017 OF201 in older images. Now officially recognized as a trans-Neptunian object (TNO), it orbits the Sun well beyond Neptune, which is already 30 times farther from the Sun than Earth.

What makes 2017 OF201 particularly interesting is its extreme orbit. This minor planet can venture up to 838 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun. To put that in perspective, that’s nearly 30 times farther than Neptune. At its closest, it can still be around 45 AU from the Sun.

This unique orbit categorizes it as an extreme trans-Neptunian object (ETNO), putting it in a special group of distant celestial bodies. The existence of such objects fuels theories about strange gravitational forces existing in the outer solar system.

Speaking of strange forces, let’s talk about Planet Nine. This hypothetical planet is believed to explain the unusual grouping of objects in the Kuiper Belt. Some alternate theories suggest a ring of debris exerting gravity or even a primordial black hole, but the idea of a distant planet captures our imagination the most.

If Planet Nine really exists, it could be over six times the mass of Earth and take about 7,400 years to orbit the Sun. While 2017 OF201 is substantial, it isn’t quite as massive as the fabled Planet Nine.

This discovery keeps astronomers excited. Recently, another team spotted a slow-moving object beyond Neptune, which might be another candidate for Planet Nine. While it’s not in the right spot, it joins a growing list of bodies that could eventually help us understand this elusive planet or clarify the strange movements of objects on the edge of our solar system.

Although 2017 OF201 isn’t the game-changer some have hoped for, it serves as a reminder that our solar system is still full of surprises, especially in its cold, hard-to-see outskirts. Each finding adds more pieces to a vast cosmic puzzle that scientists are eager to solve.

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Astronomy,Minor planets,planet nine