Vera C. Rubin team in Chile spots possible dwarf planet
Technology
A team at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile just spotted a possible new dwarf planet, 2026 ED138, hanging out way past Pluto, about 46 times farther from the Sun than Earth is.
It's pretty big too, somewhere between 600 and 1,500km across.
Matthew Holman finds ED138 in archives
Harvard & Smithsonian astrophysicist Matthew Holman uncovered ED138 while digging through observatory data, and it turns out astronomers have actually been catching glimpses of it since 2016.
Its orbit is tilted about 25 degrees off the usual path, hinting at a possible encounter with a massive object like Neptune in its past.
If confirmed as a dwarf planet, ED138 will join a pretty exclusive club with Pluto and Eris, reminding us there's still plenty to discover in our solar system's far reaches.