Farfarout is… Well… Farfarout. - The Cosmic Companion, Feb. 13, 2021
The most distant known object in the Solar System has an apt name - Farfarout. And, it's just far, far out! No, literally.
How far out is Farfarout? Well, we found out. This dwarf planet is really far, far out.
Deep in the dark, frigid expanse of the outer solar system, Farfarout slowly orbits the distant Sun, taking 1,000 years to complete each lonely orbit. First discovered in 1997 by astronomers at the Subaru eight-meter telescope on Maunakea in Hawaii, details of this frozen world are just now being revealed.
Astronomers Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science, David Tholen from the University of Hawaii, and Chad Trujillo from Northern Arizona University have measured just how far out Farfarout is — about 132 astronomical units (AUs) from the Sun. (One AU is the distance between the Earth and Sun- about 150 million km or 93 million miles).
The trio of astronomers have been searching the region of the Solar System beyond Pluto since 2012, looking for other planetary bodies that may floating in the frozen expanse. This intrepid team of planetary explorers also found the previous record-holder, FarOut, traveling around the Sun 124 AUs from the center of our solar system. By comparison, Pluto, once considered the ninth planet, orbits about 40 AUs from the Sun.
Read more: https://thecosmiccompanion.net/farfarout-is-well-farfarout
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