NASA Finds A Mysterious 3-Body System In Deep Space, And It’s Not A ‘Problem’

NASA Find: Scientists may have found a real example of three space rocks moving together in a faraway part of our solar system called the Kuiper Belt. They used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and a big telescope in Hawaii for their study that led to this discovery. If confirmed, this would be only the second time a group of three objects has been found in this region. This could mean there are more out there, which would help scientists understand how our solar system formed, NASA has said.

Scientists have for centuries tried to understand how three objects in space move when they are connected by gravity. You guessed it right, it’s the same idea explored in the book and recent OTT show ‘3 Body Problem’.

“The universe is filled with a range of three-body systems, including the closest stars to Earth, the Alpha Centauri star system, and we’re finding that the Kuiper Belt may be no exception,” said Maia Nelsen, scientist and lead author of the study 

The Kuiper Belt is a cold, distant region beyond Neptune, filled with icy space rocks called Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs). Scientists have found over 3,000 of these, but there could be hundreds of thousands more. The largest one is Pluto.

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All About The Altjira System

According to an article on the NASA website, the new discovery helps support an idea about how these space rocks formed. Some scientists believe that instead of crashing into each other and sticking together, three objects could have formed naturally at the same time from leftover material around the young Sun, about 4.5 billion years ago. We already know stars can form in groups of two or three this way, but scientists are still studying if KBOs can too.

The newly found three-object system is called the Altjira system. It is located 3.7 billion miles away. Pictures from Hubble show two objects moving together, about 4,700 miles apart. But after studying their movement for 17 years, scientists believe that one of them is actually two objects very close together, making it a trio.

“With objects this small and far away, the separation between the two inner members of the system is a fraction of a pixel on Hubble’s camera, so you have to use non-imaging methods to discover that it’s a triple,” Nelsen explained.

The study about Altjira was published in The Planetary Science Journal.

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There May Be More

Scientists say that finding two three-object systems in the Kuiper Belt suggests there may be more. The Altjira system might not be rare but instead part of a larger group of similar space rocks.

NASA has sent a spacecraft to visit some KBOs before, including Pluto and another one called Arrokoth. Arrokoth turned out to be two objects that merged together, making it look like a peanut. Scientists think Altjira is related to Arrokoth but is about 10 times bigger.

Even though there’s no mission planned to visit Altjira up close, scientists still have a great chance to learn more about it. For the next ten years, its outer object will pass in front of the inner ones, giving scientists more opportunities to study it. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will also take a closer look soon.