#316minorplanets

New 316 Minor Planets Found Past Neptune Astronomers in the Dark Energy Survey (DES) tells the discovery of 316 minor planets past Neptune. Of those, 139 were totally unknown before this new study, while 245 were detected in earlier observations by the DES. More than six years of data on the night sky was collected during the Dark Energy Survey, compiling the most detailed images of the southern sky ever assembled. Study didn't aim to find trans-Neptunian Objects (TNO’s), but the comprehensive maps created by DES turned out to be ideal in finding small bodies past the orbit of Neptune. “The number of TNOs you can find depends on how much of the sky you look at and what’s the faintest thing you can find,” states Gary Bernstein of the University of Pennsylvania. At first, the raw data consisted of seven billion dots - where the search picked up an object. Any objects which were in the very place for more than one night were then excluded from the dataset, reducing the number of TNO candidates to 22 million targets. Those were later examined for those looking as pairs or triplets of images, suggesting regular movement, like what would be expected when looking at a TNO. These candidates were whittled down to those which were seen on six or more nights. “We have this list of candidates, and then we have to make sure that our candidates are actually real things,” https://thegeekz.net/mercury-is-making-its-own-ice/ says Pedro Bernardinelli of the University of Pennsylvania explains. Dedicated researches for TNOs usually photograph objects once every hour or two, causing the detection of movement more apparent that looking at images taken less frequently. Bernardinelli made a new stacking system, allowing researchers to better determine which signals described actual TNO’s, and which were false signals. The system was tested on known TNO’s, as well as purposely created false signals, and the tests proved accurate. Searching the Darkness The best known TNO is the dwarf planet Pluto, found in 1930, and reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006. Read the full article