A Top Video mystery dwarf planet's been hiding in our Solar System this total time
Astronomers have presently announced that an unnamed, overlooked object lurking at the back of our Solar System is actually way larger than they before thought. In information, it's only slightly smaller than Pluto and Eris, which suggests that it is, in fact, a dwarf planet - the third main dwarf planet we know of in the Milky Way - and the main by far of our system's astronomical bodies to not have a name.
So how did we go so long with no noticing how big and important this poor, nameless dwarf planet really is? It's not the opening time we've been surprised by our Solar System recently - a hardly any weeks ago scientists establish a hidden moon past Pluto, and a giant galaxy orbiting our own seemingly appeared out of nowhere previous month. What all of these objects have in common is that they're dark and weird, which made them hard to spot.
But now researchers have second-hand two space telescopes, including data from our favourite planet-hunter Kepler, to get a proper look at the dwarf planet, and have efficient that size assessment to an impressive diameter of 1,535 km (955 miles) - making it not a great deal smaller than the of-great-interest Pluto and Eris. So, uh, I guess it's time we gave 2007 OR10 a name?
It's taken us so long to entirely appreciate 2007 OR10 because it's incredibly dark and sluggish. Its surface is deep red - which scientists think might be due to an ever-changing outside layer of methane ice - and it hardly reflects any light.
It also spins incredibly slowly, with a rotational day that lasts around 45 hours - one of the top in the Solar System. It also has a weird, elliptical orbit which makes it hard for us to watch it for a consistent age of time.
Kepler did catch a glimpse of it in 2014, & you can see the very fuzzy footage of some of its orbit below:
So how did we go so long with no noticing how big and important this poor, nameless dwarf planet really is? It's not the opening time we've been surprised by our Solar System recently - a hardly any weeks ago scientists establish a hidden moon past Pluto, and a giant galaxy orbiting our own seemingly appeared out of nowhere previous month. What all of these objects have in common is that they're dark and weird, which made them hard to spot.
But now researchers have second-hand two space telescopes, including data from our favourite planet-hunter Kepler, to get a proper look at the dwarf planet, and have efficient that size assessment to an impressive diameter of 1,535 km (955 miles) - making it not a great deal smaller than the of-great-interest Pluto and Eris. So, uh, I guess it's time we gave 2007 OR10 a name?
It's taken us so long to entirely appreciate 2007 OR10 because it's incredibly dark and sluggish. Its surface is deep red - which scientists think might be due to an ever-changing outside layer of methane ice - and it hardly reflects any light.
Kepler did catch a glimpse of it in 2014, & you can see the very fuzzy footage of some of its orbit below:
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