Last week scientists working on a survey of objects at the edge of our solar system spied the largest body to be discovered since Clyde Tombaugh picked Pluto out of the fuzzy pinpricks of light back in 1930. Astronomers at the California Institute of Technology, which is running the survey, were surprised by the discovery, and news of the body raced out of the Caltech survey offices last Tuesday -- via a post over the Internet -- well before any sort of size or orbit could be determined for the hulking piece of rock. A bit more info was added later, and the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass., released an updated announcement a few days later. What is known about the object is that it lurks in the heart of the mysterious Kuiper (KY-per) Belt, a belt of material found beyond the orbit of the gas giant Neptune. The object, tentatively called 2004 DW, may be somewhere between 800 and 1,100 miles wide -- about half as wide as Pluto, the king of the Kuiper Belt. It orbits the sun once every 288 years or so, and spends most of its time out beyond the orbit of Pluto.However, more information is needed to pin down the exact dimensions of the worldlet. It could be much smaller than scientists think, or much larger. The only information scientists have to work with is a rough approximation of what 2004 DW is made of, how reflective this material should be and how much light is shining back at us from its surface.
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