{"id":672890,"date":"2026-11-02T18:18:12","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T18:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/672890\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T18:18:12","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T18:18:12","slug":"vera-rubin-observatory-spots-possible-new-dwarf-planet-beyond-pluto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/672890\/","title":{"rendered":"Vera Rubin Observatory Spots Possible New Dwarf Planet beyond Pluto"},"content":{"rendered":"

Astronomers using the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory have found what may be a new dwarf planet in the outer Solar System. The large, icy object carries the provisional name 2026 ED138<\/a> (ED138 for short).<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

A mosaic of images captured by the Vera Rubin Observatory of 2026 ED138. Image credit: NSF \/ DOE \/ Vera C. Rubin Observatory \/ NOIRLab \/ SLAC \/ AURA \/ M. Juri\u0107, University of Washington \/ D. de Martin & M. Zamani, NSF\u2019s NOIRLab.<\/p>\n

\u201cRubin is giving us an unprecedented capacity to explore the sky through a combination of speed, depth, and precision,\u201d said Dr. Mario Juri\u0107, Rubin\u2019s solar system lead scientist at the University of Washington.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the discovery is just the beginning: once we identify a new object, we can search back months, and sometimes even decades, finding it in images where nobody knew to look.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis ability to both discover and \u2018precover\u2019 objects is transforming how quickly and accurately we can determine their orbits and understand the distant Solar System.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Juri\u0107 and his colleagues estimate ED138 is between 600 and 1,500 km (373-932 miles) across, based on its brightness, distance and assumed reflectivity.<\/p>\n

Icy bodies that big should be pulled into a round shape by their own gravity, one of the requirements for dwarf planet status.<\/p>\n

Infrared observations will be needed to pin down its true size. If it is confirmed, ED138 would join Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Haumea and Makemake as the sixth dwarf planet.<\/p>\n

\u201cRubin Observatory\u2019s super power is the ability to clearly capture movement and change among a vast number of objects and phenomena that humans have never seen before,\u201d said Dr. Edward Ajhar, NSF program director for Rubin Observatory.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat power greatly extends our ability to reveal and understand new things about our Solar System, the Milky Way, and billions of other galaxies across the Universe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRubin Observatory\u2019s unique strengths make it an incredible tool for investigating a wide range of astrophysical phenomena, from dark energy to the discovery of this dwarf planet candidate,\u201d added Dr. Kathy Turner, DOE\u2019s program manager for Rubin Observatory.<\/p>\n

ED138 is currently about 46 AU (astronomical units) from the Sun, with one astronomical unit being the average Earth-Sun distance. For reference, Pluto has an average distance of 40 AU.<\/p>\n

This puts the dwarf planet candidate in the realm of trans-Neptunian objects, the icy bodies that orbit beyond Neptune.<\/p>\n

The orbit is tilted nearly 25 degrees from the plane of the Solar System. This makes ED138 a \u2018hot-classical\u2019 Kuiper Belt object, a group thought to have been nudged off course by Neptune\u2019s gravity.<\/p>\n

Such a large object went unnoticed because it sits in a part of the sky near the Milky Way\u2019s plane, crowded with millions of stars.<\/p>\n

Rubin\u2019s repeated scans of the southern sky and its software for picking out faint movers made the find possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf confirmed as a dwarf planet, ED138 would join a very small family of worlds,\u201d said Dr. Matthew Holman, an astronomer at the Harvard & Smithsonian\u2019s Center for Astrophysics.<\/p>\n

\u201cRubin will image the whole southern sky again and again for ten years, so any others hiding in the places earlier surveys skipped are now within reach.\u201d<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

M. Juric et al. 2026 ED138. MPEC 2026-U85<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Astronomers using the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory have found what may be a new dwarf planet in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[284999,5434,61,60,5430,23190,14746,82,3630,10808,29213],"class_list":["post-672890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-2026-ed138","tag-dwarf-planet","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kuiper-belt","tag-planet","tag-rubin","tag-science","tag-solar-system","tag-trans-neptunian-object","tag-vera-c-rubin-observatory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}