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Posted by: MarcF Dec 17 2018, 10:01 PM

"A team of astronomers has discovered the most-distant body ever observed in our Solar System. It is the first known Solar System object that has been detected at a distance that is more than 100 times farther than Earth is from the Sun."
https://carnegiescience.edu/node/2428
“Farout” is at about 120 astronomical units, its brightness suggests that it is about 500 km in diameter (likely making it spherical) and it has a pinkish hue, a color generally associated with ice-rich objects.
Very nice discovery.
Regards
Marc.

Posted by: scalbers Dec 17 2018, 10:10 PM

Interesting - a similar albedo to Pluto (with the estimated 500km diameter) would place this at about 23.1 magnitude in brightness.

Posted by: Holder of the Two Leashes Dec 17 2018, 10:15 PM

He is a link to the Minor Planet Center's Electronic Circular for this object, posted today:

https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/mpec/K18/K18Y14.html

Note that the Delta (distance from Earth in AU) and the r (distance from sun in AU) are run together.
For November 17th those values were 124.3330 and 125.2666 respectively.

Also there is this which is a little more readable:

https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/db_search/show_object?object_id=2018+VG18&commit=Show

In the orbital elements section the q (perihelion) is currently listed as 21.739 AU so it was closer at some point decades ago. But all those orbital elements are still pretty uncertain. It's currently on the way out on its orbit.

Posted by: JohnVV Jan 4 2019, 01:53 AM

for those Celestia users here is a SPICE orbit add on for "2018 VG18"

http://forum.celestialmatters.org/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=953

this assumes that spice orbits are set up and working , for that see:
http://forum.celestialmatters.org/viewforum.php?f=18

Posted by: MarcF Feb 28 2019, 08:35 AM

And after FarOut... FarFarOut:
https://www.space.com/farfarout-most-distant-solar-system-body.html
"Astronomers just found an object that lies 140 astronomical units (AU) from the sun. That's 140 times the Earth-sun distance, which is about 93 million miles (150 million kilometers)."
Regards,
Marc.

Posted by: JRehling Mar 3 2019, 08:38 PM

Am I the only one hoping that Voyager 2 is coincidentally going to fly by this?

Posted by: tanjent Mar 3 2019, 10:51 PM

While hoping for a coincidence of that magnitude, perhaps we should also worry about the possibility of a collision?

Posted by: Steve5304 Mar 4 2019, 03:20 AM

Nah...Voyager 2 couldnt take a picture or gather any sort of data.

The computers on the ground to process images dont exist anymore

Posted by: djellison Mar 4 2019, 04:25 AM

Code could be written to process those images. Most of the image processing code that's used today is https://github.com/nasa/VICAR

What's not working are the cameras and scan platforms on the spacecraft. They were turned off decades ago to save power to avoid browning out the spacecraft.

Posted by: Paolo Mar 4 2019, 08:25 AM

turning back on the cameras, scan platform and the other remote sensing instruments unfortunately would require more power than the poor old RTG would be capable of providing

Posted by: Steve5304 Mar 4 2019, 11:30 PM

I had heard it was possible in an old paperback o read in the later 2000s..they would have to shut down other things tho and the probe would have to be programmed to turn those things back on at a later date...the biggest problem was the computers on earth and the scan platform...but its an interesting topic worthy of discussion. Im sure it would be worth trying should a flyby happen. To be honest tho the book i read may have been science fiction...

For example only the camera and computer wpuld be powered...radio and other functions off. Who knows...would be something to have the old warhorse do something like that. Its been flying for 50 years

Posted by: nprev Mar 5 2019, 04:21 AM

Not gonna happen; there's nowhere near enough power capacity left, as Paolo said. Voyager is now exclusively a particles & fields mission for however much longer they last.

Moving on...