Thread: New Dwarf Planet Found At The Solar System's Outer Limits

Astronomers have discovered a dwarf planet that's even farther away than Pluto -- so far, in fact, that its orbit reaches into a new edge of the solar system.

The dwarf planet's current name is 2012 VP113, and it is located in a "wasteland or badland of the solar system," said astronomer Chad Trujillo, head of adaptive optics at Gemini Observatory in Hawaii and co-discoverer of this object. His study was published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

But, here's the interesting part:

Trujillo's study also suggests that there could be a large planet that no one has seen, way out at 250 astronomical units, affecting the orbits of Sedna and the new dwarf planet. But this is only a theory; the planet has not been detected.

You can read about this story at CNN.com and also at NPR.org.

Originally Posted by Daecon

Astronomers have discovered a dwarf planet that's even farther away than Pluto -- so far, in fact, that its orbit reaches into a new edge of the solar system.

The dwarf planet's current name is 2012 VP113, and it is located in a "wasteland or badland of the solar system," said astronomer Chad Trujillo, head of adaptive optics at Gemini Observatory in Hawaii and co-discoverer of this object. His study was published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

But, here's the interesting part:

Trujillo's study also suggests that there could be a large planet that no one has seen, way out at 250 astronomical units, affecting the orbits of Sedna and the new dwarf planet. But this is only a theory; the planet has not been detected.

You can read about this story at CNN.com and also at NPR.org.

I have read the story on Nature News, and it is truly remarkable that we continue to discover unexpected objects in our 'neighborhood'.
However, I think that some people might claim that this is proof that Planet Nibiru (or X) exists, despite the severe lack of evidence
(cf. NASA's WISE survey finds thousands of new stars, but no 'Planet X' -- ScienceDaily).

The odds that planets formed during the earliest stage of the solar system were in a near perfect orbit is imo small, which suggests to me that there out to be a number of neighbouring planets (and asteroids) outside what we consider to be our solar system (potentially spiralling further away with each passing billion year).

Along with this finding was the one about the asteroid Chariklo having two rings.

Asteroid Found with Rings! First-of-Its-Kind Discovery Stuns Astronomers (Video, Images)