{"id":219699,"date":"2025-08-05T14:52:26","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T00:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=219699"},"modified":"2025-08-05T14:52:47","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T00:52:47","slug":"maunakea-rare-fossil-spotted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2025\/08\/05\/maunakea-rare-fossil-spotted\/","title":{"rendered":"Maunakea: Rare ‘fossil’ spotted by telescope"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
\"Planet
AI-generated illustration of the distant Solar System object “Ammonite.” Photo design: Ying-Tung Chen (ASIAA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Scientists using the Subaru Telescope<\/a> on Maunakea have discovered a new celestial object that could provide groundbreaking insight into the earliest days of our Solar System. The object, officially named 2023 KQ14<\/abbr> and nicknamed “Ammonite” by the research team, is believed to be a preserved relic or “fossil” from the Solar System\u2019s infancy.<\/p>\n

The discovery recently published in Nature Astronomy<\/em><\/a> is part of the FOSSIL<\/abbr> project (Formation of the Outer Solar System: An Icy Legacy), an international effort led by researchers in Japan and Taiwan. Using Subaru Telescope\u2019s powerful wide-field Hyper Suprime-Cam, the team identified Ammonite in a distant, stable orbit far beyond Neptune, an area that has remained largely untouched since the Solar System\u2019s formation more than 4.5 billion years ago.<\/p>\n

“This find pushes the boundaries of what we know about the outer Solar System,” said Fumi Yoshida, principal investigator of the FOSSIL<\/abbr> project. “Ammonite\u2019s orbit and location suggest something extraordinary occurred in our cosmic past, and we\u2019re just beginning to piece the story together.”<\/p>\n

Unusual orbit confirmed<\/h2>\n

Follow-up observations using the Canada-France-Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Telescope<\/a> (CFHT<\/abbr>) on Maunakea, confirmed the object\u2019s unusual orbit. Archival data from telescopes in Chile and Arizona helped track Ammonite\u2019s motion across nearly two decades, revealing a remarkably stable path that makes it distinct from other known distant objects.<\/p>\n

\"Orbital
Ammonite\u2019s orbit (red line) and orbits of three other sednoids (white lines). Credit: NAOJ<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to researchers, what makes this discovery especially exciting is its implications for the still-unproven Planet Nine theory which is a hypothesized large planet far beyond Pluto. Ammonite\u2019s differing orbit challenges existing models and may force scientists to rethink their understanding of the Solar System\u2019s outermost reaches.<\/p>\n

“This kind of discovery shows just how important Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>\u2019s telescopes are to global science,” said Kumiko Usuda-Sato, outreach specialist at Subaru Telescope. “We mahalo the community for allowing us to continue exploring the cosmos from Maunakea, a place of deep cultural and natural significance.”<\/p>\n

Ammonite is part of a rare group of celestial bodies known as Sedna-like objects\u2014distant icy worlds with orbits that carry them far beyond Neptune. These objects are defined by their extremely distant perihelion, or closest point to the Sun. Until now, only three such objects had been identified.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The object, nicknamed “Ammonite,” is believed to be a preserved relic or “fossil” from the Solar System\u2019s infancy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[34,659,1421,158,1164,14,947],"class_list":["post-219699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","tag-astronomy","tag-maunakea","tag-maunakea-observatories","tag-publication","tag-telescope","tag-uh-hilo","tag-uh-system","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219699"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":219759,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219699\/revisions\/219759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}