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Article: Outer limits: solar system at the fringe.(Cover Story)
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- January 14, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Planetary scientist Mike Brown has had plenty of practice finding objects at the fringes of the solar system. In sky images spaced an hour apart, he and his colleagues have identified several of the solar systems--most distant denizens, revealed by their motion relative to the background of fixed stars. Early in 2004, soon after his team began using a new version of their discovery software, Brown was in his office at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena reviewing images on his computer screen. He came across a sequence of pictures, taken by the Samuel Oschin telescope on Palomar Mountain near Escondido, Calif., showing a faint object moving so slowly that it ...