{"id":3353,"date":"2018-12-17T13:24:29","date_gmt":"2018-12-17T20:24:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nau.edu\/astronomy-and-planetary-science\/?p=3353"},"modified":"2019-11-05T13:26:00","modified_gmt":"2019-11-05T20:26:00","slug":"its-the-solar-systems-most-distant-object-astronomers-named-it-farout-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/department-astronomy-planetary-science\/its-the-solar-systems-most-distant-object-astronomers-named-it-farout-the-new-york-times\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s the Solar System\u2019s Most Distant Object. Astronomers Named It Farout. – The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Orbiting 11 billion miles from the sun, this tiny world offers additional clues in the search for the proposed Planet Nine.<\/p>\n

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An artist\u2019s rendering of 2018 VG18, nicknamed \u201cFarout,\u201d which is more than three times as far out from the sun as Pluto.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Roberto Molar Candanosa\/Carnegie Institution for Science<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Astronomers have discovered a far-out world circling the sun.<\/p>\n

How far out? It\u2019s so far out that the discoverers nicknamed it \u201cFarout.\u201d All they can see is a pinkish dot of light in the night sky, but that is enough to infer that they are looking at a 300-mile ice ball orbiting more than 11 billion miles from the sun \u2014 more than three times as far out as Pluto, and the farthest object ever observed within the solar system.<\/p>\n

I t is the latest revelation in a distant region that was once expected to be empty, and studying its trajectory may help point to an as-yet-unseen ninth planet circling the sun far beyond Neptune<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the International Astronomical Union\u2019s Minor Planet Center announced the discovery and gave this object the designation 2018 VG18.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast month, we came across it moving very, very slow,\u201d said Scott S. Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science, one of the discoverers of VG18. \u201cImmediately we knew it was an interesting object.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n