An asteroid on the cold outer edge of the solar system

The international team of astronomers discovered in the Kuiper belt an extraordinary object that turned out to be, as it turned out, a carbon-rich asteroid. This asteroid became the first of its kind object identified on the cold outer edge of the solar system. Probably, this mysterious object formed in the Main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter,

and then was pushed out of its place and after a journey of billions of kilometers it turned out to be in the Kuiper belt.

In the early era in the solar system there were a large number of intense displacements and collisions. According to theoretical models during this period, giant planets could push small objects from the inner part of the Solar System far to its periphery. In particular, according to these models, in the Kuiper belt-encompassing the solar system along its outer boundary-there may be a small number of asteroids pushed out of the Main asteroid belt, such as carbon-rich asteroids, called carbonaceous asteroids.

In a new study, a team led by Tom Seccull of the University of Queens in Belfast, Northern Ireland, conducted observations of an unusual Kuiper belt object called EW95 with the help of a very large telescope located in Chile and was able to show that the observed object is carbonaceous asteroid. These findings are an important argument in favor of the theory of "stormy youth" of the solar system, characterized by a large number of migrations, since, most likely, the site of the primary formation of the EW95 is the Main Asteroid Belt.