A pink dwarf planet, recently discovered near the edge of our solar system, is already generating mystery just days after its discovery.
The orbital paths calculated for the newly-recognized dwarf planet and another body suggests a large planet may still lie undiscovered in the deepest reaches of the solar system. This mystery world would orbit the Sun at a distance 250 times further away than the Earth. The distance between the Earth and Sun, about 93,000,000 miles, is called an astronomical unit, or AU. It would be between two and three times as massive as our home world.
Dwarf planet 2012 VP113 is believed to have a diameter of about 280 miles and this pink world orbits 83 astronomical units from the Sun.
The Kuiper Belt is a collection of icy and rocks and debris orbiting the Sun at a distance between 40 and 50 AU's from the Sun. Pluto, and its attending family of five or more moons, are members of this group. Beyond that outer limit, there appears to be a significant empty area, before objects are seen again en masse in the far-distant Oort Cloud.
The sky survey which revealed the presence of VP113 was equal in size to about 50 full moons. If this density is constant across the sky, that could mean up to 900 worlds more than 620 miles across may circling our home star beyond the orbit of Pluto. Future observations could discover even dimmer planets in these same areas, which could dramatically raise the number of these miniature worlds known to astronomers.
"Some of these inner Oort cloud objects could rival the size of Mars or Earth. This is because most of the inner Oort cloud objects are so distant that even very large ones would be too faint to detect with current technology," Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science, who helped discover the miniature planet, said.
Sedna, another dwarf planet found beyond the orbit of Neptune, was discovered in 2003. That world, and VP113, orbits outside the Kuiper Belt, but inside the Oort Cloud.
"Formation models indicate that Sedna could be a link between the Kuiper belt objects and the hypothesized outer Oort cloud at around 10,000 AU from the Sun," researchers wrote in the article announcing the discovery of 2012 VP113. The orbital path of this world also shows signs of the distant Super Earth, not yet found by astronomers.
Officially designated 2012 VP113, the newly-discovered miniature world has been nicknamed Biden by some astronomers, after the VP in the minor planet designation.
Only the International Astronomical Union can assign official names to astronomical objects. Astronomical objects cannot officially be named after political figures until 100 years has passed since the person in question performed their work. So, Biden won't have a planet officially named after him during his lifetime.
