Skywatch: Orbit Is Tracked of ‘Fossil’ on Edge of Solar System | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Astronomers witness birth of a new solar system for the first time

Until now, astronomers have detected fully formed, massive, newborn planets or observed younger protoplanetary discs, but never witnessed the precise moment when small, rocky solids, the first “seeds” of planets, began to condense and coalesce.

Skywatch: Orbit is tracked of ‘fossil’ on edge of solar system | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Astronomers using the Subaru Telescope and Canada France Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea discovered a “fossil” of our early solar system nicknamed “Ammonite.” This type of object is a sednoid, a group of small bodies with peculiar orbits around the edge of the solar system and well beyond the gravitational influence of Neptune.