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A new dynamical class of object in the outer Solar System

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Abstract

Some three dozen objects have now been discovered1,2,3,4,5 beyond the orbit of Neptune and classified as members of the Kuiper belt—a remnant population of icy planetesimals that failed to be incorporated into planets. At still greater distances is believed to lie the Oort cloud—a massive population of cometary objects distributed approximately in a sphere of characteristic dimension 50,000au(ref. 6). Here we report the discovery of an object, 1996TL66, that appears to be representative of a population of scattered bodies located between the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud. 1996TL66has an orbital semimajor axis of 84au, and is in an extremely eccentric and highly inclined orbit (e = 0.58, i = 24°). With a red magnitude ∼20.9, it is the brightest trans-neptunian object yet found since Pluto and Charon. Its discovery suggests that the Kuiper belt extends substantially beyond the 30–50auregion sampled by previous surveys, and may contain much more mass than previously suspected.

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Figure 1: Object 1996TL66 imaged on ut1996 October 15 at 07:14 (top panel) and 12:41 (bottom panel).
Figure 2: Planar view of the outer Solar System.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. Holman for discussions, G. Williams for providing Fig. 2 , and W.Brown for help with the observations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. *Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, 02138, Massachusetts, USA

    Jane Luu & Brian G. Marsden

  2. †Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, 96822, Hawaii, USA

    David Jewitt, Chadwick A. Trujillo & Jun Chen

  3. ‡Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, 85721, Arizona, USA

    Carl W. Hergenrother

  4. §W & B Observatory, PO Drawer 1130, Cloudcroft, 88317, New Mexico, USA

    Warren B. Offutt

Authors
  1. Jane Luu
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  2. Brian G. Marsden
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  3. David Jewitt
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  4. Chadwick A. Trujillo
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  5. Carl W. Hergenrother
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  6. Jun Chen
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  7. Warren B. Offutt
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Correspondence to Jane Luu.

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Luu, J., Marsden, B., Jewitt, D. et al. A new dynamical class of object in the outer Solar System. Nature 387, 573–575 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/42413

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