SAN ANGELO, Texas (Concho Valley Homepage) — Angelo State University’s (ASU) Department of Physics and Geosciences explains the new object in our solar system that was announced on July 15 and designated as sednoid 2023 KQ14, nicknamed “Ammonite.”
After the news broke, CVHP reached out to the ASU’s Department of Physics & Geosciences to find out more information about the sednoid designated as 2023 KQ14.
What is a sednoid?
According to Kenneth Carrell, the Planetarium Director at ASU, the “sednoid” designation is given to objects with some characteristics similar to a Neptunian object and a potential dwarf planet called Sedna. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has specific definitions for a “planet” and a “dwarf planet” and there are currently only five officially recognized dwarf planets.
“Future observations may result in more objects getting moved into that category, including potentially Sedna,” said Carrell.
How 2023 KQ14 was found?
Carrell told the publication that the discovery of this object was made using the Subaru Telescope which located in Hawaii. This telescope has a diameter of just over 8 meters and is in the top 10 largest telescopes currently in use.
“Interestingly, although this object was ‘discovered’ recently by the team using the Subaru Telescope, they used archival images from surveys as far back as 2014 to get a better idea of the orbit of the object (they discuss these ‘precoveries’ in the Methods section of the Nature article),” said Carrell.
He then explained that there are surveys and telescopes being dedicated to discoveries like this, so discovering objects like 2023 KQ14 may be much more common in the near future.
“So, this object could have been discovered years ago if people knew where to look for it,” said Carrell.
More Facts about 2023 KQ14
Carrell said 2023 KQ14 is an object in our Solar System and described it as a Trans-Neptunian object on a highly elliptical orbit. A trans-Neptunian object is a celestial body that orbits the Sun at a greater average distance than Neptune.
He said 2023 KQ14’s perihelion, or closest approach to the Sun, is almost 70 times farther from the Sun than Earth, and more than twice as far as Neptune, the most distant planet in our Solar System. In contrast, its aphelion, or farthest distance from the Sun, is more than 400 times the Earth-Sun distance, placing it well beyond the heliopause, the widely recognized boundary between the Solar System and interstellar space.
He also said that 2023 KQ14 is not possible to see with your unaided eye or with amateur telescopes. The apparent magnitude of the object is just over 25, which is more than 50 million times fainter than your eye can detect in the darkest of conditions. He also added that observing objects this faint requires the largest ground-based telescopes or space telescopes.
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