A Couple of Interesting Astronomical Discoveries

I've come across a couple of interesting astronomical discoveries this week.

First, the farthest object in the solar system has been detected, a planetetoid that the finders have nicknamed Farfaraway.

Farfarout's average distance from the Sun is 132 astronomical units (au); 1 au is the distance between the Earth and Sun. For comparison, Pluto is only 39 au from the Sun. The newly discovered object has a very elongated orbit that takes it out to 175 au at its most distant, and inside the orbit of Neptune, to around 27 au, when it is close to the Sun.

Farfarout's journey around the Sun takes about a thousand years, crossing the massive planet Neptune's orbit every time. This means Farfarout has likely experienced strong gravitational interactions with Neptune over the age of the solar system, and is the reason why it has such a large and elongated orbit.

Second, astronomers may have detected a planet in the habitable zone around Alpha Centauri C, the closest star to the Sun. 

Wagner and his colleagues reckon they have improved upon today's methods, and can capture direct images of planets that are up to three times the size Earth located within habitable zones of stars near our Sun. They tested their new direct imaging technique by observing Alpha Centauri, a system made up of three stars codenamed A, B, and C, located 4.37 light-years away, using the Very Large Telescope in Chile, and made a fascinating discovery.

The team were surprised to find what looks like a never-before-seen object around Alpha Centauri A, which they have since nicknamed “C1”. Olivier Absil, co-author of the paper and a research professor at the University of Liege, told us the object was missed in previous observations because the detection methods used weren’t sensitive enough.

“Direct imaging observations have never reached such a sensitivity [before], all other direct imaging experiments are limited to Jupiter-type planets," he said. "In the specific case of Alpha Centauri, even indirect methods such as radial velocities, which are generally more sensitive, but do not provide a picture of the planetary system, have not been able to reach a Neptune-size sensitivity for the orbital distance considered here.”

What I found most interesting about that discovery was not finding the planet itself (assuming the discovery is verified), but the improvement made to adaptive optics technology. That is exciting and will likely be used in the new 30-metre telescopes now under construction.