2012 VP113
Discovery images taken on November 5, 2012. A merger of three discovery images, the red, green and blue dots on the image represent 2012 VP113 's location on each of the images, taken two hours apart from each other.
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|
| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by |
Scott Sheppard Chad Trujillo Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (807) |
| Discovery date | 5 November 2012 announced: 26 March 2014 |
| Designations | |
| MPC designation | 2012 VP113 |
| TNO, sednoid | |
| Orbital characteristics | |
| Epoch 13 January 2016 (JD 2457400.5) | |
| Uncertainty parameter 5 | |
| Observation arc | 739 days (2.02 yr) |
| Aphelion | 438.11 AU (65.540 Tm) (Q) |
| Perihelion | 80.486 AU (12.0405 Tm) (q) |
| 265.8 AU (39.76 Tm) (a) | |
| Eccentricity | 0.68960 (e) |
| 4175.54 yr (1525115 d) 4300 yr (barycentric) |
|
| 3.2115° (M) | |
| 0° 0m 0.85s /day (n) | |
| Inclination | 24.047° (i) |
| 90.818° (Ω) | |
| 293.72° (ω) | |
| Earth MOID | 79.5621 AU (11.90232 Tm) |
| Jupiter MOID | 75.862 AU (11.3488 Tm) |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Dimensions | 300–1000 km 450 km (assumed) 600 km |
| 0.15 (Nature; 2014) 0.1 (Brown website) |
|
| (moderately red) V−R = 0.52 ± 0.04 B−V = 0.92 |
|
| 23.4 | |
| 4.0 (MPC) 4.0 (JPL) 4.3 |
|
2012 VP113 is a planetoid in the outer reaches of the Solar System. It is the object with the farthest known (closest approach to the Sun) in the Solar System, farther than Sedna's. Its discovery was announced on 26 March 2014. It has an absolute magnitude (H) of 4.0, which makes it likely to be a dwarf planet, and it is accepted as a dwarf planet by some. It is expected to be about half the size of Sedna and similar in size to Huya. The similarity of 2012 VP113 's orbit to the orbits of other known extreme trans-Neptunian objects led Scott Sheppard and Chad Trujillo to suggest that an undiscovered super-Earth in the outer Solar System is shepherding these distant objects into similar type orbits.
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, which is dominated by ultra-red colored objects.
2012 VP113 was first observed on 5 November 2012 with NOAO's 4-meter Víctor M. Blanco Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory.Carnegie’s 6.5-meter Magellan telescope at Las Campanas Observatory 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) and Las Campanas Observatory (304). It has an observation arc of about 2 years. Two precovery 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 of 23, it is too faint for most telescopes to easily observe.
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