Asia In Brief Japan’s National Astronomical Observatory last week announced the discovery of a small body with an orbit beyond Pluto’s, and scientists think its presence means the “Planet 9” theory should be revisited.
The Observatory named the body 2023 KQ14 and explained its FOSSIL (Formation of the Outer Solar System: An Icy Legacy) project spotted it during 2023 using the 8.2 meter Subaru Telescope it operates on Mauna Kea in Hawaii.
Follow-up observations in July 2024 with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, plus exploration of data from other sources, allowed scientists to track its orbit over 19 years and to classify it as a “Sednoid”. Readers may find that name familiar as it describes objects that, like the dwarf planet Sedna, circulate in elongated elliptic orbits that never come closer to the Sun than the planet Neptune.
The Observatory’s Dr. Yukun Huang said the discovery of this object has implications for the theory our solar system includes distant “Planet 9” that orbits well beyond Pluto and whose gravity influences bodies in the Kuiper Belt and the even more distant Oort Cloud. “The fact that 2023 KQ14’s current orbit does not align with those of the other three sednoids lowers the likelihood of the Planet Nine hypothesis. It is possible that a planet once existed in the Solar System but was later ejected, causing the unusual orbits we see today.”
“The presence of objects with elongated orbits and large perihelion distances in this area implies that something extraordinary occurred during the ancient era when 2023 KQ14 formed, said Dr Fumi Yoshida of the Chiba Institute of Technology, one of the scientists credited in a paper about the discovery.
The International Astronomical Union will name the object. For now, scientists have given it the nickname “Ammonite”.
The orbit of 2023 KQ14 (in red) compared to the orbits of the other three sednoids (in white). 2023 KQ14was discovered near its perihelion at a distance of 71 astronomical units (71 times the average distance between the Sun and Earth). The yellow point indicates its current position. (Credit: NAOJ) – Click to enlarge
Australian billionaire’s political party suffers data breach, won’t contact victims
Australian political party Trumpet of Patriots last week revealed a ransomware attack on its servers caused a data breach, but “determined it is impracticable to notify individuals” impacted by the incident.
The party said the incident saw attackers gain “access to, and the possible exfiltration of” data including email address, phone number, identity records, banking records, employment history, documents (including those provided subject to confidentiality arrangements) and the like.”
The party recommended anyone who feels they may be caught up in the breach “carefully consider whether you need to take any action in response to the data breach on the assumption that the hackers may have accessed your data” and “follow general precautionary steps and remain vigilant about the misuse of your personal information.”
Mining billionaire Clive Palmer is the principal backer of Trumpet of Patriots, which was once called the United Australia Party but was unable to use the latter name after failing to register it properly before Australia’s May election. Palmer is thought to have spent AU$60 million ($39 million) on the election, after spending around double that ahead of Australia’s 2022 vote. His parties won a single senate seat in 2022, and no seats this year.
The party won over 900,000 votes at the election. If even ten percent of those voters shared data with the party, this is a significant breach.
Perplexity accesses 360 million customers in India
India mobile carrier Bharti Airtel last week announced free accounts with Perplexity AI for its 360 million customers, all of whom will gain access to the $20/month Perplexity Pro plan which allows 500 daily deep research queries and unlimited multi-step reasoning searches.
Only Bharti Airtel’s most expensive ₹1749/month ($20.50) plan costs more than the Perplexity subscription.
New Japan-Singapore sub cable
Japanese tech giant NEC last week announced it will build a new submarine cable linking Japan and Singapore, for clients including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, ARTERIA Networks, Chunghwa Telecom, DREAMLINE, Globe Telecom, Telekom Malaysia and Unified National Networks.
The “AUG East” cable will include branches to Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan. None of the parties involved revealed the capacity of the cable, but NEC assured it will use “a high-count fibre pair system delivering unprecedented bandwidth capacity, enabling support for millions of simultaneous ultra high-definition video streams.”
Grab Grabs Istio instead of Consul
Singaporean superapp Grab last week revealed it has replaced its service mesh based on Hashi Corp’s Consul with an implementation of the open source Istio.
Grab explained that its Consul implementation meant a single server issue “could trigger a fleet-wide impact, affecting critical services like food delivery and ride-hailing. Istio’s strong Kubernetes integration and native support, plus active community backing, gave the company confidence it could rebuild its service mesh quickly and with rich services that its unique operations require.
News of the change is bittersweet for IBM, which helped to create Istio but acquired Hashi Corp.
Huawei back on top of China’s mobile market
Analyst firm IDC last week reported Huawei has again become China’s top manufacturer of mobile phones.
Huawei held the crown in the late 2010s and early 2020s, before US sanctions and the sale of its midrange handset brand Honor saw it slide down the charts.
The company has since bounced back with surprisingly powerful phones and even a model with three folding display panels.
According to IDC, Huawei shipped 12.5 million handsets into China during calendar Q2, giving it 18 percent market share ahead of Vivo, OPPO, Xiaomi, and Apple (respectively 11.9, 10.7, 10.4, and 9.6 percent).
Huawei took the lead despite its shipments slipping 3.4 percent year over year. China’s smartphone market declined four percent year over year, with Apple’s 1.3 percent dip the least bad result among the top five handset vendors. ®
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