New 'dwarf planet' identified orbiting beyond Pluto

The dwarf planet candidate is named 2026 ED138

WASHINGTON:

Scientists using a Chile-based telescope have identified an icy object orbiting beyond Pluto that may join our solar system's small roster of dwarf planets.

Researchers said the candidate, named 2026 ED138, has a diameter estimated at between roughly 370 and 930 miles (600 and 1,500 km) and is orbiting about 46 times farther from the sun than Earth. By way of comparison, Pluto orbits at an average of about 40 times farther from the sun than Earth.

The object was spotted using the new Vera C Rubin Observatory, on the summit of the Cerro Pachón mountain in central Chile. The telescope is a joint initiative of the US National Science Foundation and US Department of Energy.

Further observations are needed to confirm that the object is a dwarf planet.

If confirmed, 2026 ED138 would join five other dwarf planets recognised by the International Astronomical Union, the global authority on classifying celestial bodies. Those are Pluto, Eris, Haumea and Makemake, all of which orbit beyond the outermost planet Neptune, and Ceres, located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Based on the current data, 2026 ED138 would be among the largest of the dwarf planets.

"For me, what this demonstrates is that many exciting discoveries remain to be made with the Rubin Observatory and other telescopes," said astrophysicist Matt Holman of the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian, who first spotted 2026 ED138.

Pluto long was considered the solar system's ninth and outermost planet, but was reclassified by the International Astronomical Union as a dwarf planet in 2006 because it did not meet the organization's formal definition of a planet. Pluto and the new dwarf planet candidate reside in a frigid region of the solar system populated by various icy bodies.