Discovery of a Candidate Inner Oort Cloud Planetoid

@article{Brown2004DiscoveryOA,
  title={Discovery of a Candidate Inner Oort Cloud Planetoid},
  author={Michael E. Brown and Chadwick A. Trujillo and David L. Rabinowitz},
  journal={The Astrophysical Journal},
  year={2004},
  volume={617},
  pages={645-649}
}
We report the discovery of the minor planet (90377) Sedna, the most distant object ever seen in the solar system. Prediscovery images from 2001, 2002, and 2003 have allowed us to refine the orbit sufficiently to conclude that Sedna is on a highly eccentric orbit that permanently resides well beyond the Kuiper Belt with a semimajor axis of 480 ± 40 AU and a perihelion of 76 ± 4 AU. Such an orbit is unexpected in our current understanding of the solar system but could be the result of scattering… Expand
View PDF on arXiv
196 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
26
Background Citations
88
Methods Citations
2
Results Citations
4

Figures from this paper

Paper Mentions

Blog Post
How Astronomers Are Going to Find Planet Nine
io9
7 April 2016
News Article
Dwarf Planet Sedna
Technology.org
11 August 2015

196 Citations

Citation Type

Citation Type

2006 SQ372: A Likely Long-Period Comet from the Inner Oort Cloud
We report the discovery of a minor planet (2006 SQ372) on an orbit with a perihelion of 24 AU and a semimajor axis of 796 AU. Dynamical simulations show that this is a transient orbit and is unstable… Expand
A Sedna-like body with a perihelion of 80 astronomical units
TLDR
The detection of 2012 VP113 confirms that Sedna is not an isolated object; instead, both bodies may be members of the inner Oort cloud, whose objects could outnumber all other dynamically stable populations in the Solar System. Expand
Discovery of a Planetary-sized Object in the Scattered Kuiper Belt
We present the discovery and initial physical and dynamical characterization of the object 2003 UB313. The object is sufficiently bright that for all reasonable values of the albedo it is certain to… Expand
EVIDENCE FOR A DISTANT GIANT PLANET IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM
Recent analyses have shown that distant orbits within the scattered disk population of the Kuiper Belt exhibit an unexpected clustering in their respective arguments of perihelion. While several… Expand
Discovery of a New Member of the Inner Oort Cloud from the Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey
We report the discovery of 2010 GB174, a likely new member of the Inner Oort Cloud (IOC). 2010 GB174 is 1 of 91 trans-Neptunian objects and Centaurs discovered in a 76 deg2 contiguous region imaged… Expand
A METHOD TO CONSTRAIN THE SIZE OF THE PROTOSOLAR NEBULA
Observations indicate that the gaseous circumstellar disks around young stars vary significantly in size, ranging from tens to thousands of AU. Models of planet formation depend critically upon the… Expand
Orbital Precession in the Distant Solar System: Further Constraining the Planet Nine Hypothesis with Numerical Simulations
The longitudes of perihelia and orbital poles of the solar system's dozen or so most remote detected objects are clustered in a manner inconsistent with that of a random sample of uniformly… Expand
How Sedna and family were captured in a close encounter with a solar sibling
The discovery of 2012VP113 initiated the debate on the origin of the Sedna family of planetesimals in orbit around the Sun. Sednitos roam the outer regions of the Solar System between the… Expand
A Near-coplanar Stellar Flyby of the Planet Host Star HD 106906
  • Robert J. De Rosa, P. Kalas
  • Physics
  • The Astronomical Journal
  • 2019
We present an investigation into the kinematics of HD 106906 using the newly released Gaia DR2 catalog to search for close encounters with other members of the Scorpius-Centaurus (Sco-Cen)… Expand
Observational Signatures of a Massive Distant Planet on the Scattering Disk
The orbital element distribution of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) with large pericenters has been suggested to be influenced by the presence of an undetected, large planet at >200 AU from the Sun.… Expand
...
1
2
3
4
5
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 17 REFERENCES
The Formation of the Oort Cloud and the Primitive Galactic Environment
We analyze the conditions of formation of the Oort cloud from icy planetesimals scattered by the accreting outer planets. The combined effect of planetary and external perturbations is considered to… Expand
Evidence for an Extended Scattered Disk
Abstract By telescopic tracking, we have established that the transneptunian object (TNO) 2000 CR 105 has a semimajor axis of 220±1 AU and perihelion distance of 44.14±0.02 AU, beyond the domain… Expand
The Buildup of a Tightly Bound Comet Cloud around an Early Sun Immersed in a Dense Galactic Environment: Numerical Experiments
We simulate numerically the buildup of a comet reservoir around the early Sun assumed to be still immersed in the placental molecular gas that gave birth to it, and to be gravitationally bound to… Expand
Dynamical limits on dark mass in the outer solar system
Simplified model solar systems with known observational errors are considered in conducting a dynamical search for dark mass and its minimum detectable amount, and in determining the significance of… Expand
OBSERVATIONAL LIMITS ON A DISTANT COLD KUIPER BELT
Almost all the more than 500 known Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) have been discovered within 50 AU of the Sun. One possible explanation for the observed lack of KBOs beyond 50 AU is that the distant… Expand
THE DEEP ECLIPTIC SURVEY: A SEARCH FOR KUIPER BELT OBJECTS AND CENTAURS. I. DESCRIPTION OF METHODS AND INITIAL RESULTS
We report here initial results of the Deep Ecliptic Survey, an ongoing new search for Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) and Centaurs using the 8K × 8K Mosaic CCD array on the 4 m Mayall Telescope at Kitt… Expand
The Common Origin of the High Inclination TNO's
Numerical integrations of the four major planets orbits inside a primordial planetesimals disk show that a fraction of Neptune primordial scattered objects are deposited into the classical Kuiper… Expand
The Formation and Extent of the Solar System Comet Cloud
The formation of the solar system comet cloud and its subsequent evolution over an interval equal to the age of the solar system are simulated. Assuming that the comets formed in the outer planetary… Expand
The Radial Distribution of the Kuiper Belt
We examine the radial distribution of the Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) using a method that is insensitive to observational bias effects. This technique allows the use of the discovery distances of all… Expand
Orbit Fitting and Uncertainties for Kuiper Belt Objects
We present a procedure for determination of positions and orbital elements, and associated uncertainties, of outer solar system planets. The orbit-fitting procedure is greatly streamlined compared… Expand
...
1
2
...