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Published online 23 August 2004 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news040823-3
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Sedna 'has invisible moon'
Distant planetoid may have pitch-black partner.
It is truly a far-reaching debate: does Sedna, the most distant object ever discovered in our Solar System, have a moon? And if it does, why haven't we seen it yet?
A group of British astronomers has set out to shed light on the problem, and are claiming that Sedna has a moon, but it is so sooty that it reflects almost no light at all.
Writing in this month's issue of The Observatory1, Chandra Wickramasinghe of Cardiff University, UK, and colleagues argue that Sedna's putative partner is an entirely new type of object.
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