Quaoar and Sedna
Back in 2002, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope discovered Quaoar, named after a Native American God. Located 1 billion kilometres beyond Pluto, was about half the size of Pluto and orbiting the Sun every 288 years. It was the farthest known solar system object to be found. A year and a half later, astronomers using the Samuel Oschin Telescope at Caltech's Palomar Observatory, have discovered Sedna, named after the Inuit Goddess of the ocean. Sedna lies at 13 billion kilometres from the Sun, and is speculated to be in the Oort Cloud -- if that's true, it will be the first object to be discovered in the Oort Cloud. Sedna is about 75% the size of Pluto, and orbits the Sun every 10,500 years, in an elliptical orbit that at its furthest, puts it at 130 billion kilometres away. Its distance however is about 10 times closer to where the Oort Cloud should be, and the researchers have speculated that it may have been nudged in by a passing star sometime in the past -- that star would have to have been so close, that it would have been brighter in sky than the full moon, visible even in the daytime -- it would have stayed in our sky for about 20,000 years. The star would have flung comets into our solar system as well -- comets that would have showered the Earth, killing off some life.
Back in 2002, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope discovered Quaoar, named after a Native American God. Located 1 billion kilometres beyond Pluto, was about half the size of Pluto and orbiting the Sun every 288 years. It was the farthest known solar system object to be found. A year and a half later, astronomers using the Samuel Oschin Telescope at Caltech's Palomar Observatory, have discovered Sedna, named after the Inuit Goddess of the ocean. Sedna lies at 13 billion kilometres from the Sun, and is speculated to be in the Oort Cloud -- if that's true, it will be the first object to be discovered in the Oort Cloud. Sedna is about 75% the size of Pluto, and orbits the Sun every 10,500 years, in an elliptical orbit that at its furthest, puts it at 130 billion kilometres away. Its distance however is about 10 times closer to where the Oort Cloud should be, and the researchers have speculated that it may have been nudged in by a passing star sometime in the past -- that star would have to have been so close, that it would have been brighter in sky than the full moon, visible even in the daytime -- it would have stayed in our sky for about 20,000 years. The star would have flung comets into our solar system as well -- comets that would have showered the Earth, killing off some life.
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