Boffin's software found a possible dwarf planet - a result so rare he thought it must be a bug
2026 ED138 is way out beyond Neptune and perhaps the smallest known object of its type
A scientist on the Rubin Observatory team has made a groundbreaking discovery, identifying a possible sixth dwarf planet in our solar system. The observation was made using data collected by the observatory in Chile, equipped with the 3200-megapixel Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) Camera. The search code for this discovery was developed by Matthew Holman and Kevin Napier, who analyze billions of moving object detections to identify unique celestial bodies.
Upon spotting the object on October 13, Holman was initially skeptical of his own work, but after extensive verification and review by the Minor Planet Center, the discovery was officially announced. The object, named 2026 ED138, is located approximately 46 astronomical units (au) from the Sun, with an average distance between the Earth and the Sun constituting one au.
The object is estimated to be between 600 and 1500 kilometers in diameter, making it potentially the smallest dwarf planet ever observed, smaller than Pluto, Eris, and Haumea but larger than Makemake and Ceres. The discovery was made possible by the observatory's continuous monitoring of the entire Southern Hemisphere sky and advanced algorithms that sift through vast amounts of data to identify small moving objects.
Written by urgent.news from The Register Science's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
This story
This is one outlet's version. Read the fullest account.
