SOLAR SYSTEM

New planet identified in Solar System

Astronomers say they have found a new planet in our Solar System, the first one bigger than Pluto since that object was discovered in 1930. The planet is also further away than Pluto, the furthest known planet, the researchers said. 
The planet, temporarily named 2003UB313, was found in an ongoing survey at Palomar Observatory’s Samuel Oschin telescope, he added. The observatory is on the Palomar Mountain near San Diego, Calif.
Pluto, while historically considered a planet, is more correctly termed a “Kuiper Belt Object,” -- the Kuiper Belt is an area of the solar system outside Neptune’s orbit, and which is believed to contain asteroids, comets, and icy bodies.
Currently about 97 times further from the sun than the Earth, it is also the farthest-known object in the solar system, and the third brightest Kuiper Belt Object.
Discoverers Brown, Trujillo and Rabinowitz said they first photographed the new planet on October 31, 2003. But it so far away that its motion was not detected until they reanalyzed the data last January. Since then, the scientists said, they have been studying the planet to better estimate its size and its motions.