Welcome to a scale model of our . In the model, this circle shows Sedna is a trans-Neptunian object (an object that on average orbits the relative size of the Sun. The farther from the Sun than Neptune) discovered on November 14, distances between panels show the 2003 by Michael Brown, Chad Trujillo and David Rabinowitz. relative distances between solar system Sedna has a very elongated orbit, more like a comet than a planet, French translation of text in Sun at upper left corner of panel. objects. The panels for the Sun, Earth and takes over twelve thousand years just to orbit the Sun once. and other planets are located on the It is composed mostly of ices which for unknown reasons are Keele campus. The object Sedna is so far from the Sun that almost as red as the surface of Mars. The temperature on Sedna it is located at Glendon never gets warmer than -240 C (33 degrees above absolute zero).

in this scale model. Because it is the coldest, most distant place known in the solar NASA / JPL - system, Sedna was named after the Inuit goddess of the sea, who Caltech / R. Hurt The false-color image to the right, our The four panels above (moving clockwise from the upper left) repeatedly zoom out to best photo of Sedna to date, was taken is thought to live at the bottom of the frigid arctic ocean. with the Hubble Space Telescope. place Sedna in context. The first panel shows the orbits of the inner planets and Jupiter. The second panel shows that Sedna lies beyond the orbits of Neptune and the The next generation James Webb (French) Space Telescope should provide a objects. The third panel shows Sedna's full orbit and its location in 2004, somewhat better photo, but Sedna is just shy of its closest approach to the Sun. The final panel shows that Sedna’s elliptical too far away to see much detail. orbit falls inside the inner edge of the spherical, transparent (a distribution [French] of cold, icy cometary bodies lying at the limits of the Sun's gravitational influence).

(French) NASA, ESA, M. Brown (Caltech)

1 Sednan day = 10.273 Earth hours (French) 1 Sednan year = 12,059 Earth years (French) Comparaison de la taille de Sedna avec d'autres objets transneptuniens As seen in the figure at left, Sedna is one of the Discovery images of Sedna. Over three hours’ time, Sedna largest trans-Neptunian objects known in early moved slowly with respect to the background stars. 2009. It is thought to be smaller than but [French] larger than Pluto’s largest moon Charon. Sedna may someday be classified as a . Other logos here

(French)

NASA/Lexicon M. Brown (Caltech)