“In recent years, spacecrafts have been sent to various small bodies in the Solar System for close observation and sample collection. However, these spacecrafts have only explored limited regions of the Solar System,” said Dr. Fumi Yoshida, who leads the FOSSIL project—short for Formation of the Outer Solar System: An Icy Legacy. Dr. Yoshida is affiliated with both the University of Occupational and Environmental Health and the Chiba Institute of Technology.
“Most of the vast Solar System remains unexplored. Wide-field observations with the Subaru Telescope are steadily pushing back the frontier,” the scientist added, highlighting just how important wide-field telescopes like Subaru are in these efforts.
After spotting the object, the team searched through archived data and discovered Ammonite had actually been seen before. They traced sightings back to 2021, 2014, and even as far back as 2005 when it was captured by the Kitt Peak National Observatory. These earlier observations helped verify the new findings.
