Astronomers Discover Rare Distant Object in Sync with Neptune

https://pweb.cfa.harvard.edu/news/astronomers-discover-rare-distant-object-sync-neptune

by MaysonL • 1 year ago

55 19 1 year ago

pweb.cfa.harvard.edu

ghssds• 1 year ago

What is the meaning of the word "rare" in the context of astronomy? It seems to me calling the object discussed in the article "rare" is about as logical as saying the Earth is rare: of course a single object is rare.

dmix• 1 year ago

Well there's a few thousand trans-neptunian objects that have been discovered. I presume rare here is for the orbit pattern being perfectly in sync with Neptune itself.

adrian_b• 1 year ago

There already are known many trans-neptunian bodies whose movements are synchronized with Neptune. Pluto is also among those.

However all the others are closer to Neptune, therefore the ratios between their revolution periods an that of Neptune are relatively small rational numbers, while for this new object the ratio is 10, which is much greater.

So for now, it is one such object among many, so it may be called "rare", at least until others are discovered. In any case it was unexpected that resonances still exist at such distances.

bradly• 1 year ago

I noticed this in another article recently referring to interstellar comets as extremely rare, when what the author I think meant was interstellar comets in our solar system are rare.

dreamcompiler• 1 year ago

3-body problems are fun and there are still potentially a ton of resonances that have never been found, and that cannot be found analytically. This seems to be one of those.

TheHeasman• 1 year ago

"The survey was designed to search for bodies with orbits that extend far above and below the plane of the Earth's orbit around the sun, part of the outer solar system that hasn’t been well-studied."

Christ. I didn't realise we hadn't looked at stuff not in Earth's plane. That's a tonne of space to explore, right in our own backyard.

Terr_2• 1 year ago

Just because there's a lot of space doesn't mean there's a lot of stuff to find in it. :p

jajko• 1 year ago

Sun's rotation over time sort of aligns everything on that plane (or maintains momentum from accretion disk), galaxies are mostly also in disc forms. Pluto is a bit of an outlier, I wonder if due to some ancient collision or some other force.

So yes its a vast space (2D -> 3D), but should be rather empty no?

kgwxd• 1 year ago

phew, i thought the CEO kisscam story made HN front page for a few words there.

phkahler• 1 year ago

I thought such resonance was unstable. Isn't that the reason for the gaps in Saturn's rings?

nixass• 1 year ago

ZOZOVN

Astronomers Discover Rare Distant Object in Sync with Neptune

Related Stories