WTF Is That Thing Near Neptune?

There’s so much out in space that we don’t know or understand, it’s truly mind-boggling. However, we used to at least pride ourselves on knowing which direction stuff would rotate out there. It looks like we know even less than we thought.

Astronomers just found a mysterious object near Neptune. As of right now, they are calling it a TNO, or trans-Neptunian object. The thing that makes it weird as hell is that it’s moving backwards around the sun compared to everything else.

The TNO was found using the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System 1 Survey (Pan-STARRS 1) in Hawaii, and scientists are more than a little perplexed. Right now, the object has been nicknamed “Niku,” The Chinese word for rebellious. The name makes plenty of sense, especially when you consider the words of Astronomer Michele Bannister of Queens University, Belfast. She told reporters: “Angular momentum forces everything to have that one spin direction all the same way. It’s the same thing with a spinning top, every particle is spinning the same direction.”

The only known thing in the universe that currently breaks this law, is Niku, which happens to be moving back and up.

Matthew Holman of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the apparent winner of the Capt. Obvious award said,
“It suggests that there’s more going on in the outer solar system than we’re fully aware of.”

Source: Inhabitat