A New Dynamical Class in the Outer Solar System
J. Luu (Harvard University), B. Marsden (Center for Astrophysics), D. Jewitt, C. Trujillo, J. Chen (University of Hawaii)
We report the discovery of 1996 TL , perhaps the first detected member of a scattered component of the trans-Neptunian population (which we label Scattered Kuiper Belt objects, or SKBOs for short). At red magnitude , TL is the brightest trans-Neptunian found in recent years; with an assumed albedo of 4 , its diameter is 490 km. The eccentric orbit of TL carries it as far as AU at aphelion, suggesting that the Kuiper Belt population extends much further than the 30-50 AU region sampled by previous surveys. Discovery statistics imply that there are objects like TL . Details and implications of the discovery can be found in Luu et al., Nature, June 1997.