{"id":950458,"date":"2026-10-29T09:08:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T09:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/950458\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T09:08:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T09:08:18","slug":"new-vera-c-rubin-telescope-spots-possible-new-dwarf-planet-beyond-pluto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/950458\/","title":{"rendered":"New Vera C. Rubin telescope spots possible new dwarf planet beyond Pluto"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Text<\/p>\n

Listen to this article<\/p>\n

Estimated 3 minutes<\/p>\n

The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n

Scientists using a Chile-based telescope have identified an icy object orbiting beyond Pluto \u200cthat may join our solar system’s small roster of dwarf planets.<\/p>\n

Researchers said the candidate, named 2026 ED138, has a diameter estimated at between roughly 600 and 1,500 kilometres and is orbiting about 46 times farther from the sun than Earth. By way of comparison, \u200bPluto orbits at an average of about 40 times farther from \u200bthe sun than Earth.<\/p>\n

The object was spotted using the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory, on the summit of the Cerro Pach\u00f3n mountain in central Chile. The telescope is a joint \u200binitiative of the U.S. National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Energy.<\/p>\n

Further observations are \u2060needed to confirm that the \u2060object is a dwarf planet.<\/p>\n

If confirmed, 2026 ED138 would \u200cjoin five other dwarf planets recognized by the International Astronomical Union, the global authority on classifying celestial bodies. Those are Pluto, Eris, Haumea and Makemake, all of which orbit beyond the outermost planet Neptune, and Ceres, located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.<\/p>\n

WATCH | Dwarf planet candidate 2026 ED138’s orbital arc:<\/p>\n

Based on the current \u2060data, 2026 ED138 would be among the largest of the dwarf planets.<\/p>\n

“For me, what this demonstrates is that many exciting discoveries remain to be made with the Rubin Observatory and other telescopes,” said astrophysicist Matt Holman of the Center for \u200cAstrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian, who first spotted 2026 ED138.<\/p>\n

Pluto long was considered the solar system’s ninth and outermost planet, but was reclassified by the International Astronomical Union as a dwarf planet in 2006 because it did not meet the organization’s formal definition of a planet. Pluto and the new dwarf planet candidate \u200breside in a frigid region of the solar system populated by various icy bodies.<\/p>\n

Questions remain<\/p>\n

There are still questions about the size and composition of 2026 ED138. \u2060To be considered a dwarf planet, an object must possess sufficient mass for its own gravity to pull \u2060it into a round shape. 2026 ED138 appears to have sufficient mass for that, but more observations are \u2060needed.<\/p>\n

“The \u2060main thing we need to do is \u200bto establish the physical size of 2026 ED138,” Holman said.<\/p>\n

WATCH | See a swarm of new asteroids:\"\"<\/p>\n

See a swarm of new asteroids<\/p>\n

This video, released Monday by the team behind the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, shows images of more than 2,000 new asteroids.<\/p>\n

“When we observe with Rubin, we are seeing the sun’s \u200blight reflected from the object,” Holman \u2060said. “A smaller, more reflective object would show the same amount of light as a larger, less reflective object. Fortunately, by looking at longer wavelengths, with an observatory like ALMA, we can detect the light emitted by the object itself,” which is helpful in measuring an object’s size.<\/p>\n

ALMA, or the Atacama Large Millimeter\/submillimeter Array, is a powerful telescope also based in Chile.<\/p>\n

The \u2060discovery was announced at a \u200cscientific meeting in Spokane, Wash.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":950459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[49,48,66,306],"class_list":["post-950458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=950458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/950459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}