Yesterday, scientists announced the discovery of a new dwarf planet, the Goblin, orbiting the sun far beyond Pluto. Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institute for Science, Chadwick Trujillo of Northern Arizona University and David Tholen of the University of Hawai'i first spotted the Goblin in October 2015, when it was a mere 80 AU (about 7.4 billion miles) away. One AU is the distance between Earth and Sun. It took them three more years to confirm its existence and given the official name 2015 TG387. Since it was first discovered around Halloween 2015 and its initials include TG, they dubbed it "The Goblin".
The scientists can only detect such objects when they are closest to the sun. Otherwise, they are too distant and too faint to be seen, due to their elliptical orbits. The Goblin joins two other dwarf planets beyond Pluto, Sedna and 2012 VP113 (such a romantic name).
Sheppard and Trujillo proposed the existence of a Planet X, a large planet, about 10 times more massive than Earth, orbits the sun about 600 AU and the orbits of these dwarf planets are like 'bread crumbs' leading them to the elusive Planet X.
Newfound Dwarf Planet 'The Goblin' May Lead to Mysterious Planet Nine
https://apnews.com/fa16fca0a19c43888986bd95f7c3de2d
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