A team of astronomers believe they may have discovered a new dwarf planet—just like Pluto—on the edge of our solar system. The object—which orbits out beyond Neptune—has been named "2017 OF201" by the ...

Astronomers have uncovered a distant celestial body that may be a new dwarf planet, orbiting the Sun from more than twice the distance of Pluto. Found by researchers at the Institute for Advanced ...

The object, known as 2017 OF201, was found by researchers at the Institute for Advanced Study and Princeton University who were searching for “Planet Nine,” a hypothetical planet larger than Earth ...

Scientists may have discovered a dwarf planet far beyond Neptune — an unearthing that may disprove a longstanding theory ...

In other words, 2017 OF201 likely would not be able to remain if Planet Nine does exist. But Yang said more research is needed, and the discovery of the new dwarf planet candidate is not ...

For the dwarf planet candidate, one trip around the sun takes over 24,000 years. Its orbit challenges a proposed path for a hypothetical Planet Nine.

But at its furthest point during its orbit, 2017 OF201 is more than 1,600 astronomical units from the sun, while the closest point on its orbit is about 45 astronomical units.

Named 2017 OF201, its diameter is about 435 miles (700 km) The object takes roughly 25,000 years to orbit the sun It is among the solar system's furthest visible objects Scientists have identified an ...

A potential new dwarf planet has been discovered in the outer reaches of the solar system, and its existence poses the ...

Temporarily named 2017 OF201, it takes more than 24,000 years to travel around the sun just once along a highly elliptical orbit, coming as close as 4.2 billion miles and moving as far out as 151 ...

That makes 2017 OF201 almost 30 times farther out than Neptune at its most distant point. This kind of orbit earns the object a spot in the category of extreme trans-Neptunian objects (ETNOs).

2017 OF201’s elongated orbit makes it an outlier from the clustered objects, but Yang’s calculations suggest that the orbit of 2017 OF201 should remain stable over roughly the next billion years.