A team of astronomers have discovered the farthest known object in our Solar System and have nicknamed it ‘Farout’. The discovery was made by Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC, David Tholen of the University of Hawaii and Chad Trujillo of Northern Arizona University. The new object has been given the provisional designation 2018 VG18. The discovery was announced on December 17 by International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Centre.

According to a statement by Carnegie, 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. Its brightness suggests that it is about 500 km in diameter, likely making it spherical in shape and a dwarf planet. It has a pinkish hue, a colour generally associated with ice-rich objects, the statement said.

‘Farout’ is at about 120 astronomical units (AU), where 1 AU is defined as the distance between the Earth and the sun. The second-most distant observed Solar System object is Eris, at about 96 AU. Pluto is currently at about 34 AU, making 2018 VG18 more than three-and-a-half times more distant than the Solar System’s most-famous dwarf planet.

The cosmic body could take more than 1,000 years to orbit the sun. However, experts note the exact length of its orbit remains unclear since the object is so far away. Sheppard, who studies small bodies in the solar system, said it could take astronomers many years to determine the trajectory of Farout’s exact orbit.