Astronomer Finds Potential Furthest Object In Solar System

Prominent astronomer Dr Scott Sheppard, of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington D.C., has discovered a new object in the distant reaches of our solar system and given it the name FarFarOut. "At 140 times further away from the sun than our own planet is, the newly identified body -- if its discovery is confirmed -- will become the furthest known object in our solar system," reports The Guardian. Sheppard's discovery was made after his team was analyzing astronomical data to track down Planet Nine, a yet-to-be-discovered body thought to have 10 times the mass of Earth. From the report: Sheppard said he made the discovery of FarFarOut when a lecture he was due to give on his team's work was postponed and he went back to analyzing his data. He said FarFarOut was somewhat mysterious. "It is very faint; it is on the edge of our ability to detect it," Sheppard said. "We don't know anything about the orbit of this object, we just know it is far, far out." Sheppard said further observations were in the offing to shed more light on the find. The current record holder -- a dwarf planet at 120 times the Earth-sun distance -- was named merely FarOut when it was spotted by the same team in December last year.

Comments

Just my opinion, but

[93 Escort Wagon]

What’s next - FarFarFarOut?

Maybe we need to take the naming rights away from these astronomers.

Re:Just my opinion, but

[sheramil]

I'm just glad he wasn't allowed to name it Trans-Uraniany McTrans-Uranianface.

Re:Just my opinion, but

[Anonymous Coward]

These kinds of problems in the society can always be solved with generous amounts of single malt.

Re:Just my opinion, but

[Moblaster]

They know what they're doing.

Farther McFarface was already taken.

And farfarfarout.com was still available as of this morning.

Re:Just my opinion, but

[Shotgun]

They should have went with "Ludicrous Far Out".

Re:Just my opinion, but

[Hillgiant]

Yes. They decided on the much more mature name of "Bunghole"

Error in the number

[Hallux-F-Sinister]

It's either planet 8 or planet 10, not 9. (If Pluto isn't a planet, then neither is Earth, since it has been discovered that Earth has NOT in fact "cleared out its orbit entirely of other objects not orbiting it, which was I believe the excuse for some people pretending Pluto isn't a planet.) If Pluto's not a planet, and Earth isn't either, then there're 7 known planets, and this new thing maybe possibly MIGHT be number EIGHT. If (as I'd contend,) Pluto most certainly IS a planet, then there are NINE known and this would be the TENTH. In keeping with modern society, they should name it Planet X, but insist the "X" is pronounced "ten".

Then if it has a SATELLITE, that can be called Planet XS, and be a less-expensive option for people who want an iPlanet. Wait... what were we talking about again?

Re: Error in the number

[jd]

Unless the new planet has an Intel inside. Then the satellite should be SX, and the combined system of planet and satellite DX.

Re:Error in the number

[Sique]

Then no single planet of the Solar System is a planet, as all planets have some space debris in their respective Lagrange points.

The first Planet Nine was Ceres, and it was demoted again after the discovery of lots of objects in what we call now the Asteroid belt. Then in 1931, Pluto was promoted a planet because for some time, no one found other objects that far out that weren't moons of Neptune. And then suddenly, the number of objects discovered around Pluto increased, and Pluto wasn't even the largest of them (Ceres on the other hand is the largest object in the Asteroid belt). Thus Pluto shared the fate of Ceres and got demoted from planetary status again.

We should have kept the original definition of planets: sky objects that move against the stellar background, hence the greek name 'planetos', wanderer. Then we would have to include for instance Barnard's star or Proxima Centauri into the definition, and Sun and Moon would be planets too.

The definition of a Planet is arbitrary, as there is no clear cut-off between white dwarfs, planets, comets, asteroids and space debris. All of them circle larger objects which radiate energy from nuclear fusion, but don't have nuclear fusion themselves. Whatever definition you come up with, it will be arbitrary again, and lots of people like you will complain and find holes or apparent holes in that definition.

But the most useless definition of planets is "planets are objects we call planets". And that's what you are promoting with your insistence on the planetary status of Pluto.

Re:Error in the number

[PolygamousRanchKid]

If Pluto's not a planet, and Earth isn't either, then there're 7 known planets, and this new thing maybe possibly MIGHT be number EIGHT.

Fool: The reason why the seven stars are no more than seven is a pretty reason.

Lear: Because they are not eight?

Fool: Yes, indeed: thou wouldst make a good fool.

-- William Shakespeare, King Lear

Re: Error in the number

[Sique]

No. Brown Dwarfs actually have some nuclear fusion, albeit at a very low rate. White Dwarfs are burned out stars, but still very hot, and while they shrink in size, they radiate the energy from the gravitational implosion to the environment and appear white or blue because of their high surface temperature. The final state of a White Dwarf is a Neutron star.

Re:Error in the number

[Headw1nd]

But the most useless definition of planets is "planets are objects we call planets"

It is a shame then that this is literally what the IAU did when they decided to create a "definition" of planets with the sole objective of preventing new planets from being discovered in the solar system. In doing so, it has pretty much ignored the fact that one of the main criterion in this "definition" doesn't have any accepted meaning. If they wanted to exclude plutoids they should have just set a mass cutoff and been done with it.

Re:Error in the number

[Anonymous Coward]

What if the Moon was the same mass as Earth and they both revolved around each other?
Would they both be planets, or both be moons?

All that matters is that differentiating things by their definition serves some useful purpose.

It seems like there are two or more groups of people wanting their definition because it serves _their_ purpose.

a) don't call Pluto a planet because it's not large enough to live on, say the terraformers.
b) call Pluto a planet because its mass is within X and Y, say the astrophysicists.
c) call Pluto a protoplanet because there is still debris circling it, say the planetary formation scientists.
etc...

Re:Error in the number

[radarskiy]

"all planets have some space debris in their respective Lagrange points."

Lagrange points are gravitationally dominated by the primary and secondary body of the system. Therefore, objects at Lagrange points are not evidence that a planet has not cleared its orbit.

Re:Error in the number

[Frobnicator]

If Pluto isn't a planet, then neither is Earth

It is the lay people who read headlines and ignore details who spout this nonsense. If you are trolling, please stop.

The unwashed masses want to think of planets as the biggest space rocks. But scientists organize things by various properties and characteristics. There is a dividing line between the biggest space rocks that have the properties most people think of as planets, and the smaller space rocks that are still really big but have have different properties.

If all you want in your classification of planet is "a really big space rock" is a planet, then Pluto can be a planet. It is not a scientifically useful classification, but you're not an astronomer so it doesn't matter to you. Feel free to call moons, asteroids, and comets planets as well. People through history have done that, so you wouldn't be alone.

For the astronomers, astrophysicists, and others who actually use the definitions for scientific purposes, the current classification has eight planets (sometimes called major planets), plus updated definitions for dwarf planets, minor planets, and many more classes of objects. Each one of those classifications has different properties. Pluto is classified both as a "minor planet" and a "dwarf planet". If we accepted Pluto's size and properties as a major planet, we'd need to accept about 1000 others as major planets as well. Astronomers could combine both classifications into a single class called "planets" if all they cared about was popularity rather than useful classifications, but it makes more sense to put them into their own classification bucket since they have different properties.

Under the new classification there are currently about a million "minor planets", about 22,000 of those are named. That's up from about 60,000 known minor planets in the year 2000, and about 27,000 known minor planets in 1995. The current estimate is about a billion minor planets in the solar system. Minor planets are further subdivided based on many different properties useful to astronomers and astrophysicists.

Pluto is one of an estimated 10000 large objects that fit the classification of "dwarf planets". The current list of suspected dwarf planets --- astronomers need more data to completely classify them --- is around 1000 objects.

Re:Error in the number

[mysticgoat]

The underlying problem is that astronomy has been too lazy to develop its own nomenclature. Instead the astronomers of yore chose to steal from an unrelated field.

As any astrologer would tell you, the seven classical planets are Moon, Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn (listed in their general order of significance in daily affairs). Astronomy has gotten into trouble through appropriating these labels that have been in use for more than 3,000 years for its very different usage. In that process they are confusing the moment with the hands of the clock. Naturally they have gotten into trouble for it: they should be limiting themselves to objects in orbit and/or very far away, not meddling with linguistics. Many quite good astronomers cannot even write a journal article that would receive a passing grade in an English composition course; it would be better for all of us if they left nomenclature and taxonomy to the linguists who know what they are doing.

Re:Error in the number

[david_thornley]

I believe astrologers continue to believe Pluto is a planet, linked to the sign Scorpio. (Not the constellation Scorpio, since the zodiac used in astrology fell out of sync with the constellations a long time ago.) However, I don't know of any central astrological authority, so it would be up to individual astrologers whether to consider it or remove it and just link Scorpio with Mars again.

Re:Error in the number

[david_thornley]

When I was studying astrology back when I was young and foolish (I'm older now) astrologers generally recognized Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto as planets, assigned signs to them (Aquarius, Pisces, and Scorpio respectively), and included them in horoscopes.

Re:Error in the number

[tehcyder]

back when I was young and foolish (I'm older now) astrologers generally recognized Uranus

Come on people, the joke's practically writing itself.

Re: Error in the number

[Hallux-F-Sinister]

All modern planets are built with moon-coprocessors built into them as far as I know.

Re:Error in the number

[Hallux-F-Sinister]

To me it's simpler than that; a planet is an object of considerable size in direct solar orbit, meaning that most stuff in the solar system could be considered planets, and I'm fine with that. The convention I was speaking of, when I say there are (or were) nine planets is really just something that means there are 9 THAT WE KNOW OF. Odds are there are others that are so distant, dark, etc., that we simply haven't found them yet. It is completely arbitrary, of course; my irritation comes from the arbitrary exclusion of Pluto for no really, particularly good reason. The only things I'd exclude are bits of space rock of negligible size. Even an object like Earth's moon I would consider a planet if it weren't ORBITING a planet, namely ours. (And yes, I already knew the origin of the word planet, the meaning, (wanderer) and also that the moon doesn't really orbit the Earth, but rather it (and the Earth,) both orbit their mutual center of gravitation, which I believe, due to differences in mass, is located fairly close to Earth's geographical center of mass, just as Earth (and the other planets) don't really orbit the sun, they orbit the mutual center of gravitation, as does the sun, (which is one of a couple ways we started to discover exoplanets in the first place, through observing the star's wobble,) but again, due to the sun having somewhere around 95 or 97 or 99 percent of the solar system's total mass, that center, like Earth's, is probably pretty close to ITS geographical (or would that be solographical?) center. In the case of the sun, it's probably generally within a few centimeters of the center, and obviously will move about as the planets move. (The percentage could be much lower than we think, because there could be dozens or hundreds or thousands of large, perhaps up to Jupiter-sized planets (perhaps larger!) orbiting the sun that we don't know about, floating out there in the space between the sun and the next nearest stars, still bound to the sun by gravity. Seems a tad unlikely, but since I think the surface area on a photo decreases progressively ever more rapidly the farther away you get, they get rapidly difficult to see or detect. It's why all these centuries after the invention of the telescope we still keep finding new objects, WAY the hell out in the solar system. You need increasingly large, and more powerful telescopes (more sensitive light gathering cameras, more precise lenses, etc.,) and then you have to start hefting them up into space because beyond a certain point, the atmosphere itself becomes an obstacle, even using a laser to try to mitigate the effect. But enough of that.

We'll just have to agree to disagree. You'll go on calling Pluto a dwarf planet, whatever the hell that means, and Earth a planet as if there's a meaningful technical difference, and I'll keep calling Pluto a planet, and you'll call me a luddite and I'll say you lack imagination.

I'm not an astronomer, and I'm not going to Pluto, so it really actually doesn't matter WTF it is. In truth, it has very little impact on my life. A smidgin of my tax dollars go to pay for a spacecraft to go look at it up close, otherwise, as far as I'm concerned, and just about might as well not exist. Just like the 50 other planets orbiting between what we currently think of as the edge of the solar system, and the point where a planet would end up getting snatched away by another star.

Could be worse

[Solandri]

If the USB people were in charge of naming these, this discovery would've resulted in changing the name of FarOut to FarFarOut mk 1, and this one would've been named FarFarOut mk 2. The next one found further away would be named FarFarOut 2x2 because... I have no idea. Maybe the guy naming these was dropped on his head as a baby and never really recovered?

Re:Could be worse

[93 Escort Wagon]

You’ve given me an idea.

I propose that the members of the USB Working Group be dropped on their heads repeatedly until they start demonstrating an ability to adopt sane naming conventions. This may take a while, so I’m calling for volunteers with strong arms and backs.

Stop Deniers!

[Anonymous Coward]

Pluto IS a planet!

Alien

[AHuxley]

On/Off and dimmer switch for earth simulation?

it should have been called way out

[Anonymous Coward]

at least it would have a catchy theme song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:closer to home;

[Opportunist]

Guess it's hard to make the ad cookies GDPR-compatible...

Farther NOT Further

[corezz]

The quick and dirty tip is to use “farther” for physical distance and “further” for metaphorical, or figurative, distance. It's easy to remember because “farther” has the word “far” in it, and “far” obviously relates to physical distance.

Great Interview on Planet Nine

[sproketboy]

Event Horizon - Does Planet Nine Exist? Featuring Dr. Konstantin Batygin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Not furthest object

[Aqualung812]

Voyager 1 is currently just shy of 145 AU from the Sun.

FarFarOut may be the furthest natural object, but it isn't the furthest object.

this is weird . . .

[sgt_doom]

. . . all my previous girlfriends have all referred to me as FarFarOut????

Re:grammar police

[jeffporcaro]

Agree!