Detached objects are a dynamical class of minor planets in the outer reaches of the Solar System and belong to the broader family of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). These objects have orbits whose points of closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) are sufficiently distant from the gravitational influence of Neptune that they are only moderately affected by Neptune and the other known planets: This makes them appear to be "detached" from the rest of the Solar System, except for their attraction to the Sun.
In this way, detached objects differ substantially from most other known TNOs, which form a loosely defined set of populations that have been perturbed to varying degrees onto their current orbit by gravitational encounters with the giant planets, predominantly Neptune. Detached objects have larger perihelia than these other TNO populations, including the objects in orbital resonance with Neptune, such as Pluto, the classical Kuiper belt objects in non-resonant orbits such as Makemake, and the scattered disk objects like Eris.
Detached objects have also been referred to in the scientific literature as extended scattered disc objects (E-SDO), distant detached objects (DDO), or scattered–extended, as in the formal classification by the Deep Ecliptic Survey. This reflects the dynamical gradation that can exist between the orbital parameters of the scattered disk and the detached population.
At least nine such bodies have been securely identified, of which the largest, most distant, and best known is Sedna. Those with perihelia far beyond the Kuiper cliff are termed sednoids. As of 2023, there are four known sednoids: Sedna, 2012 VP113, Leleākūhonua, and 2021 RR205. These objects exhibit a highly statistically significant asymmetry between the distributions of object pairs with small ascending and descending nodal distances that might be indicative of a response to external perturbations; asymmetries such as this one are sometimes attributed to perturbations induced by unseen planets.
Orbits
Detached objects have perihelia much larger than Neptune's aphelion. They often have highly elliptical, very large orbits with semi-major axes of up to a few hundred astronomical units (AU, the radius of Earth's orbit). Such orbits cannot have been created by gravitational scattering by the giant planets, not even Neptune. Instead, a number of explanations have been put forward, including an encounter with a passing star or a distant planet-sized object, or Neptune itself (which may once have had a much more eccentric orbit, from which it could have tugged the objects to their current orbit) or ejected planets (present in the early Solar System that were ejected).
The classification suggested by the Deep Ecliptic Survey team introduces a formal distinction between scattered-near objects (which could be scattered by Neptune) and scattered-extended objects (e.g. 90377 Sedna) using a Tisserand's parameter value of 3.
The Planet Nine hypothesis suggests that the orbits of several detached objects can be explained by the gravitational influence of a large, unobserved planet between 200 AU and 1200 AU from the Sun and/or the influence of Neptune.
Classification
Detached objects are one of five distinct dynamical classes of TNO; the other four classes are classical Kuiper-belt objects, resonant objects, scattered-disc objects (SDO), and sednoids. Detached objects generally have a perihelion distance greater than 40 AU, deterring strong interactions with Neptune, which has an approximately circular orbit about 30 AU from the Sun. However, there are no clear boundaries between the scattered and detached regions, since both can coexist as TNOs in an intermediate region with perihelion distance between 37 and 40 AU. One such intermediate body with a well determined orbit is .
The discovery of 90377 Sedna in 2003, together with a few other objects discovered around that time such as and , has motivated discussion of a category of distant objects that may also be inner Oort cloud objects or (more likely) transitional objects between the scattered disc and the inner Oort cloud.
Although Sedna is officially considered a scattered-disc object by the MPC, its discoverer Michael E. Brown has suggested that because its perihelion distance of 76 AU is too distant to be affected by the gravitational attraction of the outer planets it should be considered an inner-Oort-cloud object rather than a member of the scattered disc. This classification of Sedna as a detached object is accepted in recent publications.