Astronomers discover ‘eccentric’ dwarf planet

[Judi Lynn]

Astronomers discover ‘eccentric’ dwarf planet

9:00pm, Jul 14, 2016
The New Daily and ABC

Dubbed ‘RR245’, the planet has been here – and secretly orbiting Neptune – all along.



An object orbiting the space beyond Neptune, dubbed 2015 RR245, has been discovered by an international team of astronomers.

The newly discovered object is believed to be a dwarf planet of approximately 700 kilometres in diameter, and has an unusually large and loopy orbit, taking 700 years to travel around the sun.

Scientists said they needed to further observe RR245 before bestowing it with a more impressive name.

It is set to join Pluto – which had its planet status stripped of it in 2006 – Ceres and Eris as a dwarf planet.

More:
http://thenewdaily.com.au/life/2016/07/14/new-dwarf-planet/

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Bad subheading they wrote - it's not 'orbiting Neptune', or 'the space beyond Neptune', at all

It orbits the Sun, beyond Neptune. And "heading out twice as far as Neptune" is selling it short - it's already twice as far away as Neptune - over 63 AU. It will end up, eventually, about 120 AU away, which is roughyl 4 times as far as Neptune. Here's a better write-up: http://www.space.com/33387-dwarf-planet-discovery-2015-rr245.html

It's not the largest object in orbit that has yet to be named. 2007 OR10 is about 1300km across, compared to the 700km of 2015 RR245. And that hasn't yet been officially declared a dwarf planet, though it's been known about for 8 more years.

[SCantiGOP]

2. Thanks for the clarification

I was wondering about that, since an object orbiting Neptune would simply be a satellite.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Thanls for the links. n/t