News Planetary Science

A possible new dwarf planet skirts the solar system’s edge

The faraway object travels in a weird, wide orbit

Illustration of 2017 OF201's orbit, shown in yellow, slightly overlapping with that of dwarf planet Sedna, shown in pink. Within their overlapping rings lies Pluto's orbit in red.

A newly discovered object called 2017 OF201, likely a dwarf planet, travels in an extremely wide elliptical orbit (yellow), a new study suggests. The orbit of the dwarf planets Sedna and Pluto are shown for reference.

Tony873004/Wikimedia Commons (CC0 1.0)

By McKenzie Prillaman

Read another version of this article at Science News Explores

A possible cousin of Pluto seems to be circling the far reaches of the solar system.