44 ASTRONOMY • JANUARY 2020
A slew of oddly orbiting objects seems to suggest a
massive and as yet unseen world is skulking in the outer
reaches of our solar system. BY JAKE PARKS
ust over a year
ago, a trio of
astronomers set
a record for the
most distant
object ever dis-
covered in the
solar system.
Because the
small world was
found more than
three times farther from the
Sun than Pluto, the team fit-
tingly dubbed it FarOut.
But FarOut’s incredible
distance of about 123 astro-
nomical units — where1 astronomical unit (AU)
equals the average distance
between the Sun and Earth
— isn’t the only thing that
makes this world intriguing.
In recent years, the same
group of researchers have
uncovered a handful of other
extremely distant bodies.
And, much to their surprise,
they have determined many
of these objects make their
closest approach to the Sun,
or reach perihelion, at about
the same point in space.
The researchers believe
this growing list of clusteredobjects — which FarOut is
suspected to be a part of —
is the best evidence yet for the
existence of an elusive world
lurking in the outer fringes of
our solar system. A world
called Planet Nine.Finding far-flung
objects
Scott Sheppard and his team
have made the news a lot
lately for their ever-growing
list of distant discoveries.
This is because Sheppard, an
astronomer at the Carnegie
Institution for Science, andfellow astronomers Chad
Trujillo of Northern Arizona
University and David Tholen
of the University of Hawai‘i,
are carrying out the most
comprehensive survey of
solar system objects beyond
Pluto to date. According to
Sheppard, since the team’s
survey began in 2012, it has
netted about 80 percent of all
solar system objects discov-
ered beyond 60 AU.
But Sheppard and his team
aren’t done yet. Over the next
few years, they expect their
survey to spot many moreIn pursuit of