A New Discovery in the Solar System

Image By Nrco0e - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,

Those pesky astronomers have been at it again. They have been out uncovering new things that change our view of the solar system.

The graphic above, obtained from Wikipedia, shows just how busy the outer solar system is with activity. Just look at how many pieces of debris have been uncovered beyond Neptune, forcing us to redefine space in the area between Neptune and the Oort Cloud.

The object found has been nicknamed "Ammonite", and its true designation is KQ14, and it is part of a new classification of objects designated as Sednoids. A Sednoid is a trans-Neptunian object with a highly eccentric orbit, similar to the distant dwarf planet Sedna. One AU (astronomical unit) is the distance between the Sun and Earth. Sedna never gets clsoer to the Sun than 76 AU, but it's aphelion takes it almost 900 AU's out. KQ14 gets closer to the sun at 66 AU but only gets out to about 252 AU.

Scientists are on the hunt for a ninth planet. The odds are better in 1 in 3 that there may one and what is leading them to this conclusion is the unusual clusering of minor bodies in the Kuiper belt region. Much as the discovery of Neptune was brought on by unusual gravitational interactions with Uranus, so it goes with the unusual "sheperding" that appears to be happening in the outer solar system. Six objects (Sedna, 2012 VP113, 2004 VN112, 2010 GB174, 2013 RF98 and 2007 TG422) all have highly elongated yet similarly oriented orbits.

And really, why should we be surprised? Space is a very old place filled with debris wrought under the influence of what Sir Isaac Newton called "gravity." Gravity is not only the glue that holds the universe and everything in it together, it is what sculpts the overall picture.

One challenging outcome of this discovery is changing some things. Because Ammonite doesn't fall in the same orbital realm as other discoveries, it changes the odds on the ninth planet ideas. What it means is that if a ninth planet does exist, it is even farther out. Observations continue..

The name Ammonite comes from the cephalopod that died out with the dinosaurs some 66 million years ago. The name of the survey project that located this objest is FOSSIL (Formation of the Outer Solar System: an Ice Legacy).

The obejct was discovered in observations taken in 2023 and 2024 and later was located in other images going back which allowed astronomers to compute it's orbit. We always need to keep an open mind because science is a continuously evolving body of knowledge subject to new ideas, this being one of them.