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Mysterious body lurking beyond Neptune could be only the 6th object of its kind

Edited By Anamica Singh

Published: Oct 29, 2026, 15:53 IST | Updated: Oct 29, 2026, 18:18 IST

Mysterious body lurking beyond Neptune could be only the 6th object of its kind

An illustration showing the solar system and the orbit of the newly discovered dwarf planet candidate 2026 ED138 (ED138). Photograph: (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center)

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A possible dwarf planet likely resides beyond Neptune, according to data from the Vera Rubin Observatory (VRO). Scientists say it lives in the same region as other dwarf planets. Only five confirmed dwarf planets have been identified in the solar system till now.

The Vera Rubin Observatory (VRO) has spotted a mysterious object beyond Neptune, in a region where known dwarf planets reside. This object could be a dwarf planet as well, based on initial observations. Named 2026 ED138, it is between 600 and 1500 kilometres wide. This suggests that it was capable of coming together because of its own gravity.

Till now, only five dwarf planets have been identified - Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Haumea and Makemake. If 2026 ED138 is confirmed as a dwarf planet, that would be a major discovery for astronomers. Matthew Holman, from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA), discovered this object on October 13.

Holman had developed a search code with his CfA colleague Kevin Napier and was running previous data from Rubin through it. This is when he found a strange object beyond Neptune's orbit. Its brightness and distance showed that it is unusually large. This is an icy and dark region in the solar system, yet it was quite bright. This meant that it was larger than other bodies in the region.

Body was observed 30 times in 4 months

Holman said in a statement on Tuesday, "Objects like this are very rare, so I immediately started checking whether I or the code had done something wrong." To confirm that what he was looking at was real, he went through Vera's entire catalogue, which despite being relatively new, contains quite a lot of data. Holman found that the telescope had observed the object on 20 other occasions, with the earliest one on March 4, 2026. Rubin's Simonyi Survey Telescope observed ED138 30 times on 20 nights till July 11.

ED138 is at a distance of 46 astronomical units (1 au is the distance between Sun and Earth). For comparison, Pluto is located at 40 au. Its orbit is tilted almost 25 degrees off of the plane of the Solar System, making it a hot-classical TNO. This also hints that the object is not in its original orbit and was disturbed by the gravitational interactions with Neptune. It is one of the largest dwarf planet candidates ever discovered beyond Neptune.