The outskirts of the solar system are getting weirder, but at the same time attractive. Astronomers have discovered a small planetoid with a peculiar orbit revolving around the sun.
Rebellious planetoid
The trans-Neptunian object was named Niku, which means "rebellious" in Chinese. And this name is well-deserved, since Niku's orbit has an inclination of 110 degrees, which means that it is not only almost vertical, but also has the opposite direction for all other large objects in the solar system.
Niku is 160,000 times fainter than Neptune and is estimated to be less than 200 kilometers in diameter. This is the second object in such a retrograde orbit after KV42, which was discovered in 2008. These two discoveries may indicate that there are other objects whose orbits are perpendicular to the plane of the solar system.
This suggests that scientists have not yet fully realized what is happening in the outer solar system.
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Could a second orbital plane exist?
The discovery of Niku by an international team of researchers was made possible by the panoramic observation telescope and the Survey rapid response system installed in Halikala, Maui. This study is not yet peer-reviewed, so you can only read about it on the ArXiv online repository.
According to astronomers, this find also suggests that there may be another orbital plane in the solar system. Most likely, it extends between the orbits of Saturn and Neptune, and its orbital tilt is more than 60 degrees. Some of the centaurs (a class of small bodies in the outer solar system) may be part of this new plane.
It remains unclear how Niku (or any other object) was able to achieve such an unusual orbit, in which the Sun was at a distance of 5.3 billion kilometers. Researchers have even suggested that the mysterious ninth planet may have played a role, but it seems that Niku is outside of her influence.
Anna Pismenna