2021 RR205

2021 RR205 is an extreme trans-Neptunian object discovered by astronomers Scott Sheppard, David Tholen, and Chad Trujillo with the Subaru Telescope at Mauna Kea Observatory on 5 September 2021. It resides beyond the outer extent of the Kuiper belt on a distant and highly eccentric orbit detached from Neptune's gravitational influence, with a large perihelion distance of 55.5 astronomical units (AU). Its large orbital semi-major axis (~1,000 AU) suggests it is potentially from the inner Oort cloud. 2021 RR205 and 2013 SY99 both lie in the 50–75 AU perihelion gap that separates the detached objects from the more distant sednoids; dynamical studies indicate that such objects in the inner edge this gap weakly experience "diffusion", or inward orbital migration due to minuscule perturbations by Neptune. While Sheppard considers 2021 RR205 a sednoid, researchers Yukun Huang and Brett Gladman do not.

2021 RR205
Discovery
Discovered byS. S. Sheppard
D. J. Tholen
C. Trujillo
Discovery siteMauna Kea Obs.
Discovery date5 September 2021
Designations
MPC designation
2021 RR205
Minor planet category
TNO · detached · distant
Orbital characteristics (barycentric)
Epoch 25 February 2023 (JD 2460000.5)
Uncertainty parameter 3
Observation arc5.11 yr (1,867 days)
Earliest precovery date24 July 2017
Aphelion1926 AU
Perihelion55.541 AU
Semi-major axis
990.9 AU
Eccentricity0.94395
Orbital period (sidereal)
31173 yr
Mean anomaly
0.363°
Mean motion
0° 0m 0.114s / day
Inclination7.644°
Longitude of ascending node
108.345°
208.574°
Physical characteristics
Mean diameter
100–300 km (est. 0.04–0.2)
24.6
6.77±0.11 · 6.74

    2021 RR205's heliocentric distance was 60 AU when it was discovered. It has been detected in precovery observations by the Dark Energy Survey at Cerro Tololo Observatory from as early as July 2017. It last passed perihelion in the early 1990s and is now moving outbound from the Sun.

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