Thursday, March 27, 2014

Far Out! Icy World Widens Our Solar System's Frontier

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/far-out-icy-world-widens-our-solar-systems-frontier-n62286

March 26, 2014 - NBC News
More than a decade after an oddball world named Sedna was discovered on the solar system's far frontier, a fresh discovery reveals that it's not so odd after all. Sedna and the newly found object, called 2012 VP113, may well be the first of a huge new class of celestial bodies.
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Sheppard and Chad Trujillo, an astronomer at the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii, describe their find in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. The discovery is based on a year's worth of observations from telescopes in Chile.
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Discovery of new dwarf planet hints at other objects in solar system

http://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-oort-cloud-planet-20140327,0,11548.story

March 26, 2014 - LA Times
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The new dwarf planet, dubbed 2012 VP113 and described in a study published in Thursday's edition of the journal Nature, helps confirm the existence of an "inner Oort cloud" in an interplanetary no man's land that was once thought to be barren but could be teeming with rocky objects.

"We had high hopes, and our hopes were confirmed," said Scott Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, who co-wrote the paper with Chadwick Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii.
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Dwarf planet discovered at solar system's edge

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/26/tech/innovation/dwarf-planet-solar-system/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

March 27, 2014 - CNN
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The dwarf planet's current name is 2012 VP113, and it is located in a "wasteland or badland of the solar system," said astronomer Chad Trujillo, head of adaptive optics at Gemini Observatory in Hawaii and co-discoverer of this object. His study was published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
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