Discovery of celestial candidates in Chile

Astronomers utilizing facilities in Chile have identified two significant celestial candidates. Using the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, Matthew Holman of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics discovered a massive trans-Neptunian object provisionally designated 2026 ED138. This object, located in the Kuiper Belt at approximately 46 astronomical units from the sun, has an estimated diameter between 600 and 1,500 kilometers and is considered a potential sixth dwarf planet for our solar system.

On October 13, 2026, Holman identified the object using specialized search code developed with colleague Kevin Napier to analyze data from the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). The International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center officially announced the finding on October 27. Researchers, including University of Washington professor Mario Juric, utilized archival data dating back to 2016 to model an orbital path spanning over a decade. The object was previously difficult to detect because it resides near the plane of the Milky Way, where background stars often obscure distant bodies.

If physical characteristics are confirmed through future infrared observations, 2026 ED138 could join Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Haumea, and Makemake as an officially recognized dwarf planet. The finding was corroborated by observations from the Dark Energy Camera at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. Data suggests the object has an orbital tilt of approximately 25 degrees, which may result from gravitational interaction with Neptune.

In a separate finding, an international team using the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in the Atacama Desert reported evidence of an exomoon within the CD-35 2722 system. High-precision infrared measurements from the CRIRES+ spectrometer suggest an object with at least the mass of Jupiter is orbiting a brown dwarf.