471325 Taowu
471325 Taowu ) is a trans-Neptunian object whose orbit is tilted 110° with respect to the ecliptic. Thus, it has a nearly polar retrograde orbit around the Sun from the reference point of Earth's orbital plane.
Discovery
Taowu was discovered on 31 May 2011 by the Mount Lemmon Survey in Arizona. It was announced by the Minor Planet Center on 2 June 2011, after other telescopes confirmed the object with additional observations. The object was given the minor planet provisional designation, which reflects its discovery date. Initial calculations of Taowu's orbit using these few observations suggested it was a centaur on a [retrograde and retrograde and prograde motion|prograde motion|prograde] elliptical orbit. However, Taowu was only observed for up to 8 days before being lost, due to large uncertainties in its orbit.In 2016, a team of astronomers led by Ying-Tung Chen performed a search for outer Solar System objects in observations by the Pan-STARRS 1 survey. They rediscovered Taowu in Pan-STARRS observations from 2013–2016 and recognized it had an unusual retrograde polar orbit. Chen's team made follow-up observations at Lulin Observatory in Taiwan and found additional observations of the object in archival images from the Dark Energy Survey and Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope. After Chen's team submitted their observations of Taowu to the Minor Planet Center, it was recognized that Taowu had been previously observed by the Mount Lemmon Survey in 2011. Taowu received its permanent minor planet catalog number 471325 on 18 August 2016 and the Minor Planet Center declared Mount Lemmon Survey as the object's official discoverer.
Name
The object is named after Taowu, one of the Four Perils in Chinese mythology. The name follows the International Astronomical Union's naming conventions for centaurs on Neptune-crossing orbits, which are named after mythological chimeras. The name was announced by the International Astronomical Union on 3 February 2025.The object had previously been nicknamed Niku by Ying-Tung Chen, who was involved with rediscovering the object and studying its orbit in 2016. The nickname is a Mandarin adjective meaning "rebellious", in reference to the object's unusual retrograde orbit.