快猫短视频

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Solitary Sedna (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

THE sun is a thief. More than 4 billion years ago, it stole hundreds of frozen mini-planets from a passing star 鈥� and the planetoid Sedna is one of them.

Sedna鈥檚 extremely elongated orbit has been a mystery ever since its discovery in our solar system in 2003. One idea was that it and a dozen similar objects were jolted out of place by a passing star.

Now Lucie J铆lkov谩 of Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands and her colleagues have simulated over 10,000 possible encounters between the sun and such a star. They conclude that the passing star was not a trouble-maker, but a victim: Sedna and its siblings were actually stolen from it when it ventured too close to the sun ().

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淗ow the sun stole a frozen mini-planet鈥�