Scientists have discovered a new dwarf planet in our solar system, far beyond the orbit of Neptune
Astronomers have announced the discovery of a new dwarf planet in our solar system, named 2017 OF201. Located far beyond Neptune, it orbits the sun every 25,000 years. Scientists have found evidence of a previously-undetected dwarf planet at the edge of the Solar System. The object, dubbed 2017 OF201, follows an extreme, oblong orbit, taking some 25,000 Earth years to circle the sun. The findings, which were confirmed by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center. but have not yet been peer reviewed, were published May 21 on the preprint server arXiv. 017 OF201 is a roughly spherical body about 435 miles (700 kilometers) in diameter, lurking beyond Neptune's orbit. A team of scientists spotted it while poring through archival data from the Blanco telescope in Chile and the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope based in Hawaii. The researchers tracked the object's motion across 19 sets of images spanning seven years. At its closest, the dwarf planet orbits at near...