A team of astronomers made up of people of different nationalities has just discovered a new dwarf planet in the Solar System. This new planet, baptized for the moment with the name of 2015RR245 According to the International Astronomical Union, it appears to have a mass less than that of a planet but greater than that of a satellite, it would be located in an orbit further away from Neptune.
As for the details of this new dwarf planet, according to its discoverers, we would talk about some 700 kilometers in diameter which, compared to the diameter of the Earth, is about eighteen times smaller. As for its orbit, it is about 120 times farther from the Sun than Earth. Although this type of celestial object is quite common, especially in the Kuiper belt, the truth is that this one in particular has attracted a lot of attention from many scientists due to its size and the width of its orbit.
2015 RR245 takes 700 years to make one complete revolution of the Sun
According to the published study on the discovery, we speak of a dwarf planet that it would take about 700 years to go around the sun. During 2096 it will be at the closest point to Earth. Due precisely to the separation between the Earth and this new planet, scientists have not been able to study the 2015 RR245 movements with much precision.
According to Michele bannister, researchers from the University of Victoria in Canada:
The icy worlds beyond Neptune are described as giant planets formed and then further away from the Sun. However, almost all of these icy worlds are exceedingly small and faint - it's really exciting to find one that is big and bright enough to study in detail. .
They are the closest thing to a time capsule that transports us to the birth of the Solar System. An analogy can be made with fossils, which tell us about the creatures that are gone.
Further information: sciencealert
In the illustration that accompanies the news, which planet is the one between Mars and Jupiter?