Finding strange objects with 'Niku' poses a great challenge to scientists

A mysterious object that lies in the outer ring of the solar system revolves around the Sun in an " unusual " way that scientists have not yet explained why.

The object named Niku - in Chinese is an adjective meaning " rebellious ", published by the team of researchers in August. Scientists choose this name because the object's trajectory is inverted, meaning that it moves in the opposite direction to most things in the solar system.

Finding strange objects with 'Niku' poses a great challenge to scientists Picture 1 The impressive image of the Kuiper Belt object (KBO), located about 4 billion miles from the Sun.Image source: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI).

Researchers used telescopes A panoramic view and a quick reflection system (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) in Hawaii to detect Niku objects and it is located on the outer ring of the solar system. 35 times more than the distance from the Sun to Earth, after the orbit of Neptune.

Niku's orbit tilted an extremely large 110 degree tilt with relatively thin and flat areas, including 8 main planets of the solar system trajectory. In contrast, most objects outside trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) are in much less orbit.

The " extremely " inverted and inclined state of Niku's orbit and the outer object of Neptune was named " Drac ", which led scientists to try to find an object with similar orbital characteristics as listed in the Minor Planet Center data (which contains information of more than 1,000 small objects within the Solar system ). They found four other objects whose orbits are inverted or nearly reversed ( ie, the orbit is less inclined, but also nearly 90 degrees ) and is tilted a lot. Two of these objects are Centaurs - the object that orbits between Jupiter and Neptune.

Finding strange objects with 'Niku' poses a great challenge to scientists Picture 2 An image exchange format that shows Niku moving in the sky, taken with a telescope Panoramic observation and a quick reflection system (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) in Hawaii.Image Source: Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System / PS1.

Scientists were surprised to see that all 6 objects appeared orbiting like a conventional plane.

" They don't randomly distribute in the sky but all seem to be arranged ," study co-author Matthew Payne, an astronomer at the Astrophysics Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, told the page. Space.com.

The computer simulations that the researchers conducted showed that Niku and Drac might have been in their orbit hundreds of millions of years ago. In addition, scientists think there may be many " extremely " inclined objects within this group.

It is still uncertain why these six objects are so closely interconnected. Astrophysicists Konstantin Batygin and Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena have recently discovered that they may have been dispersed away from the rest of the solar system by the gravity of " Onions. " The 9th planet , "a planet 10 times more massive than Earth's weight can exist at 500 times the distance from the Sun to Earth.
Maybe other origins with this group are " galactic tides ". As the Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way , it moves up and down in the galaxy's disk and " the tidal force acting on the Solar system generally causes different effects, such as disturbance. mixing the Oort cloud and pushing comets into the solar system , "Payne said.

Scientists detailed their findings on October 17 at the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS-EPSC) meeting and the Congress. European Planetary Science Congress in Pasadena, California.