The small world was found during a search for the hypothetical Planet Nine, and astronomers say the next time it will reach its closest point to the sun is in the year 26186.
A sizable world has been found in a part of the solar system that astronomers once thought to be empty. It probably qualifies as a dwarf planet, the same classification as Pluto.
Temporarily named 2017 OF201, it takes more than 24,000 years to travel around the sun just once along a highly elliptical orbit, coming as close as 4.2 billion miles and moving as far out as 151 billion miles. (Neptune is just 2.8 billion miles from the sun.)
And 2017 OF201 may have implications for the hypothesis of an undiscovered planet, nicknamed Planet Nine, in the outer reaches of the solar system.
“We discovered a very large trans-Neptunian object in a very exotic orbit,” said Sihao Cheng, a researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.
The findings, by Dr. Cheng and two Princeton University graduate students, Jiaxuan Li and Eritas Yang, have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Estimated to be about 430 miles wide, 2017 OF201 is very likely to be massive enough for its gravity to pull it into a round shape — the criterion for a dwarf planet. The International Astronomical Union created this category in 2006 when it dropped Pluto from the roster of full-fledged planets.