Scientists studying a region of outer space near Pluto have discovered the unexpected: a celestial body that has an atmosphere. It was previously believed that extremely tiny objects in space were incapable of hosting atmospheres. The finding could unlock new revelations about planets in our solar system millions of miles away.
What did scientists discover?
The atmospheric discovery of the world, called a trans-Neptunian object (TNO), was described by Japanese astronomers in a publication in the journal Nature Astronomy. Officially named 2002 XV93, the object is only about 300 miles wide and was first described many years ago. But researchers recently found that it “appears to be swaddled in a layer of air,” said The New York Times. The discovery of the thin atmosphere is surprising because the “gravitational pull of such a small celestial body is weak, and any air surrounding it should have long ago floated away into space.”
Beyond the TNO’s small size, it is also strange that 2002 XV93 has an atmosphere due to its location. The mini-object sits at the edge of the solar system, approximately 3.5 billion miles from the sun, and in this region “temperatures are so cold that most of the molecules that exist as gases in Earth’s atmosphere freeze solid,” said the Times. Any air that “did not float away would be expected to turn into ice and fall to the surface,” not become an atmosphere.
The TNO is “thought to be the solar system’s smallest object yet with a clearly detected global atmosphere bound by gravity,” Ko Arimatsu of Japan’s National Astronomical Observatory, the study’s lead researcher, told The Associated Press. But the atmosphere remains highly fragile: It is “believed to be 5 million to 10 million times thinner than Earth’s protective atmosphere” and possibly 100 times thinner than Pluto’s atmosphere.
Why is this so significant?
Because the TNO shouldn’t have an atmosphere, the discovery that it does “could offer an unprecedented glimpse into how an atmosphere forms and remains around a small object, and change how astronomers think about objects,” said CNN. Scientists believe the atmosphere may have formed due to “cryovolcanoes on the small, icy body, which release internal gas such as methane, nitrogen or carbon monoxide from beneath its surface,” a phenomenon that was previously unknown.
The revelation “suggests that some small icy bodies in the outer solar system may not be completely inactive or unchanging, as previously assumed,” Arimatsu said to Reuters. 2002 XV93 hosting an atmosphere “suggests that even in a distant, cold world there are dynamisms we haven’t imagined,” Junichi Watanabe, the director of Japan’s Koyama Space Science Institute and a co-author of the study, told the outlet.
Others say more information needs to be gathered. “This is an amazing development, but it sorely needs independent verification. The implications are profound if verified,” Alan Stern, the scientist behind NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto, told the AP. The researchers who made the discovery are optimistic. “It changes our view of small worlds in the solar system, not only beyond Neptune,” Arimatsu told the AP. The finding is “genuinely surprising.”
The finding comes with significant new suggestions about the solar system
