David James Tholen (born 1955) is an American astronomer at the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Hawaiʻi. He holds a 1978 B.S. from the University of Kansas, a 1984 PhD from the University of Arizona, and specializes in planetary and Solar System astronomy. He is a discoverer of minor planets and known for the Tholen spectral classification scheme used on asteroids.
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David J. Tholen in the context of 2018 AG37
2018 AG37 is a distant trans-Neptunian object and centaur that was discovered 132.2 ± 1.5 AU (19.78 ± 0.22 billion km) from the Sun, farther than any other currently observable known object in the Solar System. Imaged in January 2018 during a search for the hypothetical Planet Nine, the confirmation of this object was announced in a press release in February 2021 by astronomers Scott Sheppard, David Tholen, and Chad Trujillo. The object was nicknamed "FarFarOut" to emphasize its distance from the Sun.2018 AG37 was discovered when it was near aphelion, the farthest point from the Sun in its elliptical orbit. The object is estimated to be at least 400 km (250 mi) in diameter. Because of its extreme distance, 2018 AG37 appears extremely faint with an apparent magnitude of 25—only visible to the largest telescopes in the world.
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