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2001 QW322

Binary minor planet and cubewano From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2001 QW322
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2001 QW322 is a trans-Neptunian object and binary system of the Kuiper belt, located in the outermost region of the Solar System. The cubewano was discovered at the Mauna Kea Observatories on 27 July 2001, by JJ Kavelaars, Jean-Marc Petit, Brett Gladman, and Matthew Holman. Later in 2001, Kavelaars discovered that it is a binary system. The diameter of the two components are estimated at 128 kilometers (80 miles) and 126 kilometers (78 miles).[4]

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Animation of CFHT images of the 2001 QW322 pair, taken 30 minutes apart to show their motion relative to background stars and galaxies
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Components of the 2001 QW322 system resolved by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2017

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In 2008, work was published showing that the binary has an extraordinarily long orbital period (for a binary trans-Neptunian object, asteroid or minor planet) of about 17 years.[5] The orbital radius is also remarkably high (105,000 to 135,000 km) while the eccentricity is unusually low (< 0.4). All of these parameters are in the extremes of their normal ranges for such objects.[5] The wide spacing and low eccentricity conspire to make the system prone to disruption, and its lifetime is estimated to be in the order of another billion years.[5]

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