The planet, larger than Pluto, was discovered using the Samuel Oscine Telescope at Palomar Observatory near San Diego, Calif. The discovery was announced by planetary scientist Dr. Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., whose research is partly funded by NASA.
While this object has many similarities to others in the Kuiper belt, its sheer size in relation to the nine known planets means that it can only be classified as a planet, according to Dr. Brown. Currently about 97 times further from the sun than the Earth, the planet is the farthest-known object in the solar system, and the third brightest of the Kuiper belt objects.
"It will be visible with a telescope over the next six months and is currently almost directly overhead in the early-morning eastern sky, in the constellation Cetus," said Brown, who made the discovery with colleagues Chad Trujillo, of the Gemini Observatory in Mauna Kea, Hawaii, and David Rabinowitz, of Yale University, New Haven, Conn., on January 8.
"It's definitely bigger than Pluto," said Brown, who is a professor of planetary astronomy.
Scientists are able to estimate the size of a solar system object by its brightness, just as one can infer the size of a faraway light bulb if one knows its wattage. The reflectance of this planet is not yet known. Scientists can not yet tell how much light from the sun is reflected away, but the amount of light the planet reflects puts a lower limit on its size. "We are 100 percent confident that this is the first object bigger than Pluto ever found in the outer solar system," Brown added.
A name for the new planet has been proposed by the discoverers to the International Astronomical Union, and they are awaiting the decision of this body before announcing the name.
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