Space & Astronomy

Astronomers have discovered a new minor planet beyond the orbit of Pluto

By T.K. Randall
May 26, 2025 ·  1 comment

Comparative sizes of different dwarf planets. Image Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech; Sihao Cheng et al. Even within our own solar system, new worlds continue to emerge - as shown by the recent discovery of an entirely new minor planet located beyond Pluto's orbit.

Dubbed (rather boringly) '2017 OF201', the new world is thought to be up to 510 miles in diameter, making it similar in size to Ceres - a dwarf planet found in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Unlike Ceres, however, the new planet is situated far out in the solar system - 30 times further out, in fact, than the planet Neptune (or approximately 838 astronomical units from the Sun).

This means that it belongs to a class of object known as extreme trans-Neptunian objects (ETNOs).The discovery was made by a team of astronomers led by Sihao Cheng of the Institute for Advanced Study in New Jersey, who confirmed its existence after first spotting it in archival images from 2017.

It is important to note that this new world is not the long-fabled Planet Nine - an object that is rumored to exist in the outer solar system and that could be a brown dwarf star or gas giant.

Astronomers have been searching for Planet Nine ever since certain gravitational anomalies in the outer solar system hinted at the possible existence of something large lurking there.

As things stand, however, its discovery continues to remain elusive.

Source: Gizmodo | Comments (1)

Tags: Planet, Solar System