A new dwarf planet has been discovered in the Kuiper belt as scientists start to understand our surroundings in more detail.
Ok, a new “dwarf planet” has been found in the outer reaches of our solar system. The object, named 2015 RR245, was spotted by a team of international astronomers in February of this year, after looking over data from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in the Kuiper belt (a large cloud of icy bodies that orbits at the fringes of the Solar System).
The discovery was made as poart of the Outer Solar systems Origins Survey (OSSOS), which is an ongoing observation project looking at objects beyond Neptune. The scientists aren’t exactly sure on the dwarf planet’s actual size but early estimations indicate that it is 435 miles (700 kms) wide. To get an accurate size, the researcher will have to measure the surface of the object to understand its properties. Michele Bannister from the University of Victoria in British Columbia state that – “It’s either small and shiny, or large and dull.” Pretty scientific statement that!
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The orbit of the dwarf planet is pretty huge, so wide that it takes 700 years to complete. At its closest point 2015 RR245 comes within 34 astronomical units (aus) (of the Sun (i.e. 34 times the distance of the Earth to the Sun), the frathest point is 120 aus (about three times the distance Pluto is to the Sun). 2015 RR245 is the first dwarf planet discovered by OSSOS since its launch in 2013.
The International Astronomical Union defines a dwarf planet as an object orbiting the Sun that is big enough to be rounded out by its own gravitational pull. However, dwarf planets have not cleared out the “neighborhood around their orbit,” meaning there are often other objects that cross their paths. As things stand only five dwarf planets have been recognised, four in the Kuiper belt and one (Ceres) in the Asteroid Belt.
Source: TheVerge
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