Buffy



The solar system’s formation needs a rethinking. This is felt with the discovery of ‘Buffy,’ an object on the Kuiper Belt’s fringe that extends far beyond Neptune. It is a frigid mini-planet 300 to 600 miles across. The object seems to be throwing a challenge to theories of the evolution of the solar system, such as — Could the outer solar system harbor planetary samples nabbed from a passing star?



The solar system has odd orbital features. And when it comes to testing ideas about how the solar system formed, this new object may become known as Buffy the Theory Slayer. Dr. Allen is part of a team using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea to conduct a survey of the Kuiper Belt. Besides her, astronomers at the Kitt Peak National Observatories outside Tucson, Ariz, and the Mt. Palomar Observatory near San Diego conducted additional observations that helped pin down Buffy’s orbital characteristics.



Buffy orbits the sun once every 440 years

Buffy orbits the sun once every 440 years at a distance ranging from 52 to 62 astronomical units from the sun (one AU is 93 million miles).



A sun drops planetary material?

Over the 4 billion years, as the sun formed, the clutch of suns would have scattered allowing one escapee to drop off samples of its planetary building blocks - perhaps Buffy - in the outer reaches of our solar system as it headed off on its own spin about the galaxy.



Buffy: the third orbital oddity

Discovered over the past few years, Buffy is now representing the third highly inclined orbital oddball. But, no theory at the moment makes enough predictions for finding the distinctive features that would point to one as the correct explanation.



It is claimed that the stellar-flyby is the most straightforward explanation to date.



Via: The Christian Science Monitor