A team of scientists has discovered a new, weird object that may reveal new things about the mystery of the solar system. The object in question is a trans-Neptunian object (TNO) called Niku, which is believed to be one of the weirdest objects discovered so far.
This strange object is present at the threshold of other cosmic objects that may be regarded as dwarf planets, according to Astronomy. Niku is made up of a big chunk of ice, which is around 124 miles in diameter. However, this is not the weirdest thing about it as there are a number of other objects of similar size and composition, especially in the Kuiper belt.
The weirdest thing about Niku is that it is present far away from the actual plane in which most of the planets lie. For example, Earth lies at the 0-degree point on the ecliptic and Niku lies 110 degrees above it. In fact, the researchers say that Niku has entered a retrograde orbit because of its location and inclination of the usual ecliptic.
In the solar system, the most inclined planet is Mercury, which is around 7 degrees above the ecliptic. Amongst the dwarf planets, Eris and Pluto lie at 44 degrees and 17 degrees inclination from the ecliptic. In fact, there are a number of dwarf planets that fall within that range.
The researchers are still trying to discover what makes Niku one of the largest objects that possess such an inclination. The research team is currently examining a number of possibilities behind this weird characteristic.
Niku was initially discovered by Pan-STARRS 1 survey and continues to be a mystery since then. It's not like there are no other objects at such an inclination in the same orbit, but what keeps them up there has not been figured out yet.
As of now, the researchers have stated the reason as "unknown mechanism" in a pre-published version of the scientific paper in Arxiv. May be, the researchers need to put a little more effort to discover more of similar objects to figure out the real reason.
