Rubin Observatory spots new dwarf planet candidate
Scientists at the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory found a new dwarf planet candidate in the solar system.
Matthew Holman spotted the icy body while analyzing data from the Simonyi Survey Telescope earlier this month. He immediately realized the object was unusually large based on its brightness and distance measurements from Earth.
Mario Jurić verified the find by searching through catalogs and images reaching back to March 2026. The team also located the object in archival data from other surveys dating all the way back to 2016 for orbital tracing purposes.
Early data suggests ED138 is one of the biggest known worlds orbiting far past Neptune. If the discovery holds true, it becomes part of the five official dwarf planets defined by the International Astronomical Union group.
The object orbits roughly 46 times the average gap between Earth and the sun. Researchers study such trans-Neptunian objects to understand how the solar system formed and how giant planets migrated over time. More study is required to determine its precise dimensions and officially classify it as a dwarf planet.