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Post Info TOPIC: Kuiper Belt Object 2012 VP113
Blobrana


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RE: Kuiper Belt Object 2012 VP113
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Chad Trujillo and Scott Sheppard have discovered an incredibly distant body in an unusual location in the solar system. The discovery was reported today in a Minor Planet Electronic Circular and also a Nature paper. The discovery of a new trans-Neptunian object is cool, but no longer rare; what makes 2012 VP113 special is its position. It never approaches closer to the Sun than 80 AU (that is, 80 times Earth's distance, or nearly 3 times Neptune's distance), and is usually much farther away, as far as 450 AU. There is only one other world in the solar system that has an orbit anything like 2012 VP113's: Sedna.
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Blobrana


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2012 VP113 is a planetoid in the outer reaches of the Solar System. It is the object with the largest known perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) in the Solar System, larger than Sedna's. Its discovery was announced on 26 March 2014.
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Blobrana


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Kuiper Belt Object 2012 VP113
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Kuiper Belt Object 2012 VP113 is at Opposition (82.206 AU) on the 13th November 2014 



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Blobrana


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Asteroid 2012 VP113
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Dwarf Planet Discovery Could Help Show Life's Spread Through Solar System

On March 26, researchers announced the discovery of 2012 VP113, an estimated 450-kilometer object that lies just beyond the Kuiper Belt of icy objects that swarm outside of Neptune's orbit.
The new object is nicknamed "Biden" after the vice-president of the United States, because both Joe Biden and 2012 VP113 are "VPs." It is one of only two dwarf planets discovered beyond the Kuiper Belt, with Sedna (a decade ago) being the other one. The paper, "A Sedna-like body with a perihelion of 80 astronomical units," was published in the journal Nature.
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Blobrana


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Solar System's Edge Redefined

The Solar System has a new most-distant member, bringing its outer frontier into focus.
New work from Carnegie's Scott Sheppard and Chadwick Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory reports the discovery of a distant dwarf planet, called 2012 VP113, which was found beyond the known edge of the Solar System. This is likely one of thousands of distant objects that are thought to form the so-called inner Oort cloud. What's more, their work indicates the potential presence of an enormous planet, perhaps up to 10 times the size of Earth, not yet seen, but possibly influencing the orbit of 2012 VP113, as well as other inner Oort cloud objects.
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Blobrana


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Newfound Pink World Lurks at Solar System Fringes

The new object, 2012 VP113, was tracked using a new camera on a ground telescope in Chile by Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., and Chad Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii. Trujillo was part of the team that found Sedna.
Like Sedna, VP is also a dwarf planet. It's jokingly nicknamed "Biden" after Vice President Joe Biden because of the object's initials. It measures about 280 miles across, or half the diameter of Sedna. It's bone-chilling cold with a temperature of around minus 430 degrees Fahrenheit.
Unlike red and shiny Sedna, the newfound object is more pink and much fainter, which made it hard to detect.
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