, also known by its

nickname A nickname is a substitute for the proper name of a familiar person, place or thing. Commonly used to express affection, a form of endearment, and sometimes amusement, it can also be used to express defamation of character. As a concept, it is ...

"Biden", is a

trans-Neptunian object A trans-Neptunian object (TNO), also written transneptunian object, is any minor planet in the Solar System that orbits the Sun at a greater average distance than Neptune, which has a semi-major axis of 30.1 astronomical units (au). Typically, ...

of the

sednoid A sednoid is a trans-Neptunian object with a perihelion well beyond the Kuiper cliff at . Only four objects are known from this population: 90377 Sedna, , 541132 Leleākūhonua (), and , but it is suspected that there are many more. All four ha ...

population, located in the outermost reaches of the

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar S ...

. It was first observed on 5 November 2012 by American astronomers Scott Sheppard and

Chad Trujillo Chadwick A. Trujillo (born November 22, 1973) is an American astronomer, discoverer of minor planets and the co-discoverer of Eris, the most massive dwarf planet known in the Solar System. Trujillo works with computer software and has examined ...

at the

Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory The Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) is an astronomical observatory located on Cerro Tololo in the Coquimbo Region of northern Chile, with additional facilities located on Cerro Pachón about to the southeast. It is approximately ...

in Chile. The discovery was announced on 26 March 2014. The object probably measures somewhere between 300 and 1000 km in diameter, possibly large enough to be a

dwarf planet A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit of the Sun, smaller than any of the eight classical planets but still a world in its own right. The prototypical dwarf planet is Pluto. The interest of dwarf planets to p ...

Classification and physical characteristics

is the

minor planet According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is exclusively classified as neither a planet nor a comet. Before 2006, the IAU officially used the term ''minor ...

with the farthest known

perihelion An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any ellip ...

(closest approach to the Sun) in the Solar System, greater than 's. Though its perihelion is farther, has an

aphelion An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any ellip ...

only about half of Sedna's. It is the second discovered

, with semi-major axis beyond and perihelion greater than . The similarity of the orbit of to other known extreme trans-Neptunian objects led Scott Sheppard and Chad Trujillo to suggest that an undiscovered object,

Planet Nine Planet Nine is a hypothetical planet in the outer region of the Solar System. Its gravitational effects could explain the peculiar clustering of orbits for a group of extreme trans-Neptunian objects (ETNOs), bodies beyond Neptune that orbit t ...

, in the outer Solar System is shepherding these distant objects into similar type orbits. It has an

absolute magnitude Absolute magnitude () is a measure of the luminosity of a celestial object on an inverse Logarithmic scale, logarithmic Magnitude (astronomy), astronomical magnitude scale. An object's absolute magnitude is defined to be equal to the apparent mag ...

of 4.0, which means it may be large enough to be a dwarf planet. It is expected to be about half the size of Sedna and similar in size to Huya. Its surface is thought to have a pink tinge, resulting from chemical changes produced by the effect of radiation on frozen water, methane, and carbon dioxide. This optical color is consistent with formation in the gas-giant region and not the classical

Kuiper belt The Kuiper belt () is a circumstellar disc in the outer Solar System, extending from the orbit of Neptune at 30 astronomical units (AU) to approximately 50 AU from the Sun. It is similar to the asteroid belt, but is far larger—20 times ...

, which is dominated by ultra-red colored objects.

History

Discovery

was first observed on 5 November 2012 with NOAO's 4-meter

Víctor M. Blanco Telescope The Víctor M. Blanco Telescope, also known as the Blanco 4m, is a 4-metre aperture telescope located at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, Chile on the summit of Mt. Cerro Tololo. Commissioned in 1974 and completed in 1976, the telescop ...

at the

. Carnegie's 6.5-meter Magellan telescope at

Las Campanas Observatory Las Campanas Observatory (LCO) is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by the Carnegie Institution for Science (CIS). It is in the southern Atacama Desert of Chile in the Atacama Region approximately northeast of the city of La Serena. ...

in Chile was used to determine its orbit and surface properties. Before being announced to the public, it was only tracked by Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (

807 __NOTOC__ Year 807 ( DCCCVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Abbasid Empire and Byzantine Empire * Emperor Nikephoros I is forced to sue for peace, on ...

) and Las Campanas Observatory ( 304). Two

precovery In astronomy, precovery (short for pre-discovery recovery) is the process of finding the image of an object in images or photographic plates predating its discovery, typically for the purpose of calculating a more accurate orbit. This happens mos ...

measurements from 22 October 2011 have been reported. A primary issue with observing it and finding precovery observations of it is that at an

apparent magnitude Apparent magnitude () is a measure of the brightness of a star or other astronomical object observed from Earth. An object's apparent magnitude depends on its intrinsic luminosity, its distance from Earth, and any extinction of the object's li ...

of 23, it is too faint for most telescopes to easily observe.

Nickname

was abbreviated "VP" and nicknamed "Biden" by the discovery team, after Joe Biden who, at the time of discovery, was vice president ("VP") of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Orbit

has the largest perihelion distance of any known object in the

. Its last perihelion was within a couple months of September 1979. The paucity of bodies with perihelia at appears not to be an observational artifact. It is possibly a member of a hypothesized

Hills cloud In astronomy, the Hills cloud (also called the inner Oort cloud and inner cloud) is a vast theoretical circumstellar disc, interior to the Oort cloud, whose outer border would be located at around 20,000 to 30,000 astronomical units (AU) fr ...

. It has a perihelion,

argument of perihelion The argument of periapsis (also called argument of perifocus or argument of pericenter), symbolized as ''ω'', is one of the orbital elements of an orbiting body. Parametrically, ''ω'' is the angle from the body's ascending node to its periapsi ...

, and current position in the sky similar to those of Sedna. In fact, all known Solar System bodies with semi-major axes over and perihelia greater than

Neptune Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times ...

's have arguments of perihelion clustered near . This could indicate a similar formation mechanism for these bodies. was the first such object discovered. It is currently unknown how acquired a perihelion distance beyond the Kuiper belt. The characteristics of its orbit, like those of Sedna's, have been explained as possibly created by a passing star or a trans-Neptunian planet of several

Earth mass An Earth mass (denoted as M_\mathrm or M_\oplus, where ⊕ is the standard astronomical symbol for Earth), is a unit of mass equal to the mass of the planet Earth. The current best estimate for the mass of Earth is , with a relative uncertainty ...

es hundreds of astronomical units from the Sun. The orbital architecture of the trans-Plutonian region may signal the presence of more than one planet. could even be captured from another planetary system. However, it is considered more likely that the perihelion of was raised by multiple interactions within the crowded confines of the

open star cluster An open cluster is a type of star cluster made of up to a few thousand stars that were formed from the same giant molecular cloud and have roughly the same age. More than 1,100 open clusters have been discovered within the Milky Way galaxy, and ...

in which the Sun formed. File:Celestia 2012 VP113 orbit.PNG, Simulated view showing the orbit of File:Planet nine-etnos now-new3.png, 2012 VP113 orbit in white with hypothetical

File:Distant object orbits + Planet Nine.png, The orbits of known distant objects with large aphelion distances over 200 AU

Notes

References

External links

2012 VP113 Inner Oort Cloud Object Discovery Images
from Scott S. Sheppard/Carnegie Institution for Science.
2012 VP113 has Q=460 ± 30
(mpml: CFHT 2011-Oct-22

)
List of Known Trans-Neptunian Objects
Johnston's Archive

Minor Planet Center * {{DEFAULTSORT:2012 VP113 Sednoids # Minor planet object articles (unnumbered) # # # 2014 in space 20121105 Joe Biden