Astronomers have found a small planetoid that has been confirmed to be the farthest known object in our solar system. It has been called Farfarout, which now takes the crown from the previous furthest object, called Farout. Farfarout is currently 132AU (astronomical units) from the sun, which is 132 times further than Earth is from the Sun and takes about 1,000 years to complete a single orbit of the Sun. For context, Pluto is 34AU away from the Sun.
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This far away object was first detected back in 2018 by the Subaru telescope in Hawaii. It had to be peer reviewed and has also been detected and confirmed by the Gemini and Magellan telescopes since the initial find.
Not a lot is known of the small planetoid yet and its mostly shrouded in mystery. Only a few clues have been found that sheds some light. It is believed that it’s at the “low end” of the dwarf planet scale, only about 400km in diameter. Scientists also believe that it is gravitationally linked to Neptune – it may have been shunted into the outer solar system after having moved too close to Neptune a long time ago and will interact with the gas giant again due to converging orbits.
There is always a possibility that a more distant object will be found in the future, as its thought that this kind of interaction with the large bodies in the solar system is very common, especially in the early solar system. Research team member Scott Sheppard has said that Farfarout is just “the tip of the iceberg” for distant objects. New, more powerful telescopes are coming online in the coming years, and the research team feels almost certain that there will be more distant objects discovered soon thereafter.
