The orbital structure of the trans-Neptunian region provides enormous clues to the formation and evolution of the outer solar system. Discoveries of new classes of objects often lead to new insights into the ancient history of our solar system.  2008 KV42 (known to the CFEPS team as HL8n1) appears to be such an object.

LINK: Press Release Page

The discovery of 2008 KV42 was announced at the 10th tri-annual ‘Asteroids Comets Meteors’ meeting in Baltimore and via the Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2008-O02 on July 16 2008 and IAUC 8960 on July 18 2008.  With a semi-major axis of 46 +/- 5 AU, HL8n1 was discovered while at a distance of 32 AU and has a pericenter (closest approach to the Sun) at the distance of Uranus.  What makes HL8n1 extremely interesting, however, is that, with a helio-centric orbital inclination of 104 degrees, this trans-Neptunian is orbiting the Sun backwards.  This is the first ever known trans-Neptunian to be on a retrograde orbit.

Discovery observations for this target were acquired using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, with followup observations provided by the MMT, CTIO 4m and GEMINI South observatories.

Such objects are extraordinarily rare, astronomers have surveyed most of the northern sky for bright objects of this type and found only one other such object. 2001 XU93 (with an orbital inclination of 77 degrees, discovered by the Deep Ecliptic Survey) may be of the same class as HL8n1.  What are these odd balls of the TNO region telling us?  Stay tuned for more....