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| The largest known trans-Neptunian objects, including Pluto, compared to the Earth and our Moon. Image credit: Kevin Gill/Flickr |
The Dark Energy Survey (DES) has proven to be different to other projects involving Dark Energy/ Dark Matter in the sense that it has legitimate uses which have resulted in actual real things that exist, rather than just the usual waste of time and money that such projects usually cause. These results ironically are incidental to the actual point of the project, which involves mapping the sky extensively to learn more about Dark Energy, which does not exist, but at least it is mapping the things that do exist as its means of achieving its objective. This just shows how much more we could have learned about real things, if only all the other dark matter/energy projects had had some sort of silver lining incidental objectives involving real things.
The discovery of 316 minor planets beyond Neptune include 139 were entirely unknown before this new study, while 245 were seen in earlier observations by the DES.
So far over six years of data about the night sky was compiled during the Dark Energy Survey, compiling the most-detailed images of the southern sky ever assembled. This study did not aim to discover trans-Neptunian Objects (TNO’s), but the comprehensive maps produced by DES turned out to be ideal at finding small bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune.
Many of the objects are large enough to have the gravity to be fully round, just like recently demoted dwarf planet Pluto. We will have to wait for the full details of the catelogue to ascertain how many of the objects are really just glorified asteroids, depending on exactly how particular one would like feel about the definitions of astronomical objects.
Original article
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4365/ab6bd8
If you encounter a paywall in the article above there is a great synopsis here on Medium by James Maynard who tends to cover the more interesting of the space related topics in mainstream sphere if you want to follow his stuff.
Other links:
https://newatlas.com/space/new-minor-planets-solar-system/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200311161853.htm
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| The Blanco Telescope dome at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, where the Dark Energy Camera used for the recently completed Dark Energy Survey was housed. Image credit: Reidar Hahn, Fermilab |
