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A new study suggests that a tiny, icy world beyond Pluto<\/a> harbors a thin, delicate atmosphere that may have been created by volcanic eruptions or a comet strike.<\/p>\n Just 300 miles (500 kilometers) or so across, this mini Pluto is thought to be the solar system’s smallest object yet with a clearly detected global atmosphere bound by gravity, said lead researcher Ko Arimatsu of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is an amazing development, but it sorely needs independent verification. The implications are profound if verified,\u201d said Southwest Research Institute’s Alan Stern, the lead scientist behind NASA’s New Horizons<\/a> mission to Pluto and beyond. He was not involved in the study.<\/p>\n The finding offers fresh insight into our solar system\u2019s farthest, coldest objects in a region known as the Kuiper Belt. Researchers used three telescopes in Japan to observe the object in 2024 as it passed in front of a background star, briefly dimming the starlight.<\/p>\n