Astronomers have announced the discovery of a new dwarf planet in the Solar System, named 2017 OF201. Researchers tracked its movement for seven years using powerful ground-based telescopes located in Chile and Hawaii.
The discovery was confirmed by the Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union. The previously unknown celestial body was found far beyond Neptune, the outermost of the eight planets in the Solar System. The object 2017 OF201 follows an extremely elongated orbit, completing one revolution around the Sun every 25,000 Earth years.
The dwarf planet, hiding far beyond Neptune’s orbit, has a diameter of about 700 kilometers, Live Science reported. At its closest approach to the Sun (perihelion), 2017 OF201 is about 45 astronomical units away. This is 45 times greater than the distance from the Earth to the Sun. After studying the trajectory of the newly discovered planet, astronomers calculated that its last close approach to the Sun was in 1930. Coincidentally, that was the same year scientists discovered the most famous dwarf planet in the Solar System, Pluto.
At its farthest, the object 2017 OF201 reaches about 1,600 astronomical units from the Sun.
What else did the scientists report?
“Perhaps this object was initially ejected into the Oort Cloud, the most distant region of our Solar System, and then sent back,” suggested Sihao Cheng, a co-author of the study and an astrophysicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, USA.
“The planet 2017 OF201 spends only one percent of its orbital time close enough to us to be detected,” he said. He added that the presence of this object raises hopes that there may be around a hundred other objects in the Solar System with similar orbits and sizes. They may simply be too distant to detect.
The discovery complicates the theory of a distant “Planet Nine.” Some astronomers have proposed that a massive planet far beyond Neptune could be shepherding the orbits of other distant objects with its gravity. However, researchers believe that 2017 OF201 does not fit that model. They argue that, if such a Ninth Planet existed, it would likely have ejected the newly discovered dwarf planet from the Solar System. Astronomers say further observations are needed to understand these potential interactions.
“Although advancements in telescope technology have made it possible to explore distant corners of the universe, we still have a lot to learn about our own Solar System,” said Sihao Cheng.
