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The hypothetical, massive outer Solar System body Planet X is still proving elusive, but the hunt for it has yielded up a different find: a tiny dwarf planet, roughly 2.5 times Pluto's distance at the time it was found. It's called 2015 TG387 and nicknamed "the Goblin". Also, it's pretty small even for a dwarf planet - barely 300 kilometres (186 miles) across.
But we're pretty excited, because the Goblin is on an extraordinary orbit. According to the researchers, this still suggests that Planet X is somewhere out there, in the cold and dark.
So what's the Goblin telling us? According to Sheppard and colleagues, there's something out there. Something massive - up to 10 times the mass of Earth. Something tugging the orbits of these trans-Neptunian objects into elongated shapes with its immense gravity.
When it was discovered, the Goblin was at around 80 astronomical units (AU, the distance between Earth and the Sun). For context, Pluto's distance is an average of 39.5 AU - although this varies a little because its orbit is elliptical, coming in as close as 29.7 at perihelion and going out as far as 49.3 AU at aphelion.
originally posted by: AndyFromMichigan
So, where is "Planet X" supposed to located? Beyond the Kuiper Belt?
originally posted by: AndyFromMichigan
So, where is "Planet X" supposed to located? Beyond the Kuiper Belt?