The celestial body's unusual orbit “implies that something extraordinary occurred" in the early days of the solar system—and ...

Astronomers have discovered a new member of a rare and mysterious class of solar system objects known as sednoids - a subset of extreme trans-Neptunian objects (ETNOs) with exceptionally distant, ...

Astronomers using the Subaru Telescope have discovered a strange new body in a weird orbit at the edge of the solar system, ...

Typically, telescopes are synonymous with bringing far-off objects close, but the newest member of the solar system was ...

For reference, Pluto’s average distance from the Sun is about 40 AU, so 2023 KQ14 is quite distant. At 23.4 billion miles (37 ...

KQ14, nicknamed “Ammonite”, was discovered using the Subaru Telescope and is a highly elliptical object with a perihelion and aphelion that places it beyond the ...

A tiny object far beyond Pluto, newly discovered by the Subaru Telescope, could reshape our understanding of the early Solar System. Named 2023 KQ14, this rare “sednoid” follows an unusual orbit that ...

The discovery was made by astronomers using the Subaru Telescope, which is situated atop a dormant volcano in Hawaii.

The orbit of a newly discovered sednoid, 2023 KQ 14, in red, along with the orbits of the three previously known sednoids in white. Credit: NAOJ.

The “new world” was found as part of the survey project FOSSIL (Formation of the Outer Solar System: An Icy Legacy), hence its nickname, Ammonite. An ammonite is a fossil of a cephalopod that died out ...

After discovering the first sednoid, Sedna, researchers believed they would find more quickly, but that didn’t happen — V113 and Sedna are the only two that have been discovered so far.

The sednoid is estimated to be between 136 and 236 miles (220 and 380 kilometers) wide. That makes it 45 times wider than the height of Mount Everest. You may like ...