Astronomers Have Detected 'Farout' - The Most Distant Object In The Solar System

Astronomers have just detected the farthest body that can be seen in the Solar System. They temporarily named it as 2018 VG18. It is known that the distance from this object to the Sun is over 100 times greater than that from the Earth to the Sun.

The authors of this discovery include David Tholen from Hawaii University, Scott S Shepard from the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and the Northern Arizona University’s Chad Trujillo. They revealed this new finding on December 17, 2018.

Due to its extremely far distance in the solar system, the object has been set a nickname of "Farout".

 “Farout” – the farthest object from the sun

For further information about this object, "Farout" has been placed at around 120 AU (astronomical units), which is used to measure how long it is from the Sun to the Earth. For example, the visible object that ranks second in the far distance in the Solar System is Eris. It is located to be around 96 AU while Pluto is only located at about 34 AU.

It is said that the VG18-discovery team has been on their journey to find out the farthest objects from the Sun. They are still trying their best for the search of the Planet X, which is known as Planet 9.

Previously, the team also discovered an object that is far away from the Sun in October, namely 2015 TG387 with the nickname of “The Goblin.”

This nickname came from the fact that scientists detected it on occasion of the Halloween. It is located at around 80 AU and being affected by another planet with the same size with the Earth on the very far edges.

Another team’s member, Sheppard said that this new object has the farthest distance from it to the Sun and moves quite slowlier than that of any other subjects that can be seen in the Earth.

He also revealed that the team found it in the same location as other known objects that is extremely far. It is suggested that the orbit of this object might have been similar to others.

These similarities in orbit in almost discovered small, far objects in the Solar System supported the team’s previous statement about the existence of a huge planet that is far about hundreds of AU covering smaller ones.

However, Tholen, another member of the team, said that they currently only know the super long distance between it and the Sun, its color and quite similar diameter.

Due to the extreme far distance of the new object, it moves around the Sun slowly, even it can take over 1,000 years to finish its journey.

Furthermore, the Japanese Subaru telescope with the length of 8 meters took the first discovery photos of the object. And these photos named in the Mauna Kea’s top in Hawaii on the 10th of November, 2018.

Global astronomers’ cooperation

The team had to observe this new object that has the farthest distance from the Sun twice to confirm and watch it by a kind of telescope named Magellan at the Las Campanas Observatory of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Chile at the beginning of December.

A week was the time that the team spent to watch it and determine the basic properties in term of physics of this object like its color and brightness.

One author of the discovery, Trujillo said that this new finding is an achievement at the international level in the study with the use of telescopes which are placed in Chile and Hawaii and run by a modern country, Japan in coordination with a wide range of institutions and universities for research in the U.S.

Thanks to the new digital cameras with wide angles set up in the largest telescopes worldwide, they could discover an object that surpassed Pluto in the distance to the Sun.