Astronomers have found a dwarf planet out beyond Neptune called “The Goblin” because of its initial discovery around Halloween. The Goblin, officially named 2015 TG387, joins other small objects far out in our solar system, and it adds to a tantalizing theory about another much more massive “Planet X” hiding beyond Neptune.
The Goblin’s Journey
Carnegie astronomer Scott Sheppard searches for and studies far-off objects like The Goblin. Over the past few years, they’ve noticed something interesting about the ragtag group of smaller bodies circling the outer reaches of our solar system. Though you’d expect their orbits to be random, Sheppard says that they all seem to be in harmony with each other. The planetary dance is a clue that something with a much larger gravitational pull is shepherding them — Planet X.
“Finding all these objects in a similar place,” Sheppard explained, “suggests that there is a big planet out there that’s shepherding The Goblin and other objects.”
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