A mysterious object has been discovered in a strange orbit past Neptune.
The object, nicknamed “Niku,” is also spinning backwards around the sun, in the opposite direction of the rest of the planets.
Astronomers using the Pan-STARRS telescope on Haleakala, Maui, discovered Niku, noticed that is currently above the plane of our solar system.
Michele Bannister, an astronomer at Queens University, Belfast tweeted:
“I hope everyone has buckled their seatbelts because the outer solar system just got a lot weirder. Angular momentum forces everything to have that one spin direction all the same way,” says Bannister. “It’s the same thing with a spinning top, every particle is spinning the same direction.”
Matthew Holman of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said:
“It suggests that there’s more going on in the outer solar system than we’re fully aware of.”
via newscientist
source
Leave A Comment