The
Orlando Sentinel recently reported on a distant object that appears to be in our solar system, yet its identity is unclear and it could be one of three things:
A TNO, or Trans-Neptunian Object (like Pluto), which is any body that
orbits the sun beyond Neptune; a Super-Earth, meaning bigger than Earth
but smaller than the gas giants like Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune or Uranus;
or a very cool brown dwarf, which is what some scientists refer to as a
failed star - bigger than Jupiter, but not big enough to produce the
fusion necessary to become a star.
That is certainly a wide range of possibilities. Scientists with the Department of Earth and Space Sciences, Chalmers University of Technology, Onsala Space Observatory, and SE-439 92 Onsala, Sweden published a
paper that stated:
The obvious question then is, what is its nature and why has it escaped earlier detection? Is it always too close to the binary? Is it too cold? In that case, i.e., at temperatures below a hundred Kelvin or so, the non-detection at shorter wavelengths, with e.g.WISE, would be reconcilable.
Good questions that other scientists will be very eager to answer.
