These four panels show the location of
trans-Neptunian object90377 Sedna, which lies in the farthest reaches of the
Solar system. Each panel, moving clockwise from the upper left, successively zooms out to place Sedna in context.
In the second panel, Sedna is shown well outside the orbits of
Neptune and the
Kuiper belt objects.
Sedna's full orbit is illustrated in the third panel along with the object's location in 2004, nearing its closest approach to the
Sun.
The final panel zooms out much farther, showing that even this large
elliptical orbit falls inside what was previously thought to be the inner edge of the spherical
Oort cloud: a distribution of cold, icy bodies lying at the limits of the Sun's gravitational pull. Sedna's presence suggests that the previously speculated inner disk on the
ecliptic does exist.
The NASA website hosts a large number of images from the
Soviet/
Russian space agency, and other non-American space agencies. These are not necessarily in the public domain.
The
SOHO (ESA & NASA) joint project implies that all materials created by its probe are copyrighted and require permission for commercial non-educational use.
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