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The illustration indicates the object of the transsneptun dancing in harmony with Neptune. | Credit: Robert Lea (created with Canva)
Astronomers found that the strange space rock at the edge of the solar system is locked with a rhythmic dance with Neptune.
The object specified in 2020 VN40 is the family of distant solar system objects called trans-notunian objects (TNOS). 2020 The VN40 is the first object found that the sun rises once for each ten orbits’ “Neptune”. Given that one year of Neptune lasts 164.8 years of land, it means that 2020 VN40 has one long year that lasts about 1,648 years or 19,776 months on Earth!
The team of this study believes that in 2020 The VN40 was a small orbit dance with Neptune may have arisen when it was temporarily prevented by the severity of the ice giant planet. Thus, this discovery could help investigators better understand the dynamics of the body at the edge of the solar system.
“This is a big step to understand the external solar system,” Rosemary Pike from the Astrophysics Center | Harvard & Smithsonian said in a report. “This shows that even very distant Neptune regions can have objects, and it gives us new clues about how the solar system has evolved.”
2020 The rhythm of the VN40 orbit was found in the conduct of a high propensity for distant objects (Lido). Lido uses Canada and France-Hawaii Telescope with a backup from the Gemini Observatory and Walter Baade Telescope to look for strange objects in the outer solar system.
First of all, Lido specializes in hunting tna with orbit, which carry them much above and below the Earth’s orbit plane around the sun. These are regions of the solar system that astronomers have rarely studied.
“It was interesting to see how many small solar bodies exist in these very large, very tilted orbits,” said Samantha Lawler, a member of the Lido team and researcher at Regina University.
2020 VN40 orbit as a thick yellow line tilted up and left of giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune orbit represented by white circles. | Credit: Rosemary Pike, CFA
Very tilted in 2020. The VN40 road finds it at an average distance from the Sun equivalent to 140 times the distance between the Earth and our star.
But the most interesting 2020 The VN40 orbit element is its resonance with Neptune’s orbit. Other bodies, rhythmically matched with Neptune, bring the sun, their perhelion, when Neptune is the greatest distance from our star or its age.
Despite this trend, 2020 The VN40 is in perhelion when Neptune is also close to the sun. That is, if you were looking at it from the top of the solar system when 2020 VN40 Tilting means that this tno and Neptune are not actually close to each other; TNO is actually much below the solar system.
It also distinguishes between 2020 VN40 from other resonant TNAs, who tend to remain in the plane of the solar system as they approach the sun.
“This new offer is like a song we thought, finding a hidden rhythm,” said Ruth Murray-Clay, a team member and scientist at the University of California. “It can change how we think about how long objects move.”
Related stories:
– Astronomers discover the cosmic “fossil” on the outskirts of our solar system. Is this bad news “Planet 9”?
– icy asteroids help James Webb’s space telescope reveal the story of Neptune
—Messanger comet can be why the Earth has life, shows asteroid Ryugu examples
Revealing 2020 The strangeness of the VN40 orbit, it is said that the solar system objects with very tilted orbits can accept new and unexpected types of movement.
Hunting is now taking place more bodies as 2020 VN40, and the newly functioning Vera C. Rubin Observatory has identified a key role in this study.
“This is just the beginning,” said Kathryn Volk, a member of the team and researcher at the Planetary Science Institute. “We open a new window into the past of the solar system.”
2020 The results of the VN40 were announced on July 7. Planetary Science Journal.