A planetoid, nicknamed "Farfarout," which was first detected in 2018 , has been confirmed to have become the most distant object orbiting our Sun.
The Minor Planet Center has now awarded it the official 2018 AG37 designation. It will receive an official name after its orbit is better determined in the next few years.
Farfarout
Farfarout’s average distance from the Sun is 132 astronomical units (au); 1 au is the distance between the Earth and the Sun. For comparison, Pluto is only 39 au units from the Sun.
Farfarout’s journey around the Sun takes about a thousand years, crossing the orbit of the huge planet Neptune each time.
Farfarout is very dim, and based on its brightness and distance from the Sun, the team estimates its size to be about 400 kilometers across. As Chad Trujillo , an astronomer at the University of Arizona, explains:
Farfarout’s orbital dynamics can help us understand how Neptune formed and evolved, as Farfarout was likely thrown into the outer solar system by getting too close to Neptune in the distant past. Farfarout is likely to strongly interact with Neptune again as their orbits continue to cross.