Scientists discover a lean, frosty dwarf planet dubbed the goblin

A lean dwarf planet nicknamed the Goblin has been discovered far beyond Pluto.

The Goblin, a round frozen world of only 186 km, received its scary name because it was spotted by astronomers in 2015 around Halloween. But it was unveiled publicly until Tuesday, after new observations using ground telescopes.

Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science, one of the astronomers who made the discovery, said the goblin is small for a dwarf planet. Goblin's orbit is extremely elongated – it's so large that it takes 40,000 years to circle the sun.

It is the third dwarf planet recently discovered orbiting the cold boundaries of our solar system.

Closer to home, the goblin – officially named 2015 TG387 – is 65 times farther away from the sun than the Earth.

The other two recently discovered dwarf planets are 90377 Sedna, discovered in 2003, about 620 miles wide, and 2012 VP113, discovered in 2012, about 310 miles. They were found by some of the same astronomers.

Thousands of people, if not a million people, could be in orbit around the solar system, researchers said.

"These objects are in elongated orbits, and we can only detect them when they are closest to the sun. For about 99% of their orbits, they are too far away and therefore too weak for us to observe. We only see the tip of the iceberg, "Sheppard said.

"The more we find, the better we can understand the outer solar system and the planet that we believe is shaping their orbits – a discovery that would redefine our understanding of the evolution of the solar system," Sheppard said. in a report.

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