A previously unknown dwarf planet circles through the far reaches of our solar system, the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center announced Tuesday. Astronomers first observed the dwarf planet on Oct. 13, 2015, from the Subaru telescope at Hawaii’s Mauna Kea Observatories. As it travels along 99 percent of its orbit, 2015 TG387 is too far and too faint to be detected. Sheppard is not the only astronomer to propose that a putative planet, called Planet Nine or Planet X, lurks at the dark edge of the solar system. “This clustering can only be maintained if the solar system hosts an additional, yet unseen, super-Earth type planet,” Batygin said.

Source: National Post October 03, 2018 11:37 UTC