# New dwarf planet candidate 2026 ED138 found beyond Pluto by Rubin Observatory Source: Searchable (https://searchable.pk/news/science/new-dwarf-planet-candidate-2026-ed138-found-beyond-pluto-by-rubin-observatory) Type: News article Author: Searchable Editorial Published: 29 Oct 2026 Updated: 29 Oct 2026 Retrieved: 29 Oct 2026 > An icy world about 46 times farther from the Sun than Earth, possibly 600 to 1,500 km wide, could become the sixth known dwarf planet if follow-up checks confirm it. **A possible new dwarf planet, catalogued as 2026 ED138, has been found orbiting beyond Pluto by the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile**, the US National Science Foundation [announced](https://nsf.gov/news/new-dwarf-planet-candidate-discovered-nsf-doe-rubin) on 27 October. If follow-up observations confirm it, it would be only the sixth recognised dwarf planet, after Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Haumea and Makemake. The object is still a candidate: the finding comes from a preliminary analysis of Rubin data, and other observatories now need to track it to pin down its size and orbit. ## What has been found * **Name:** 2026 ED138, a provisional designation from the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center. * **Where:** in the outer solar system, beyond Pluto. ARY News, reporting the discovery, put it at about **46 astronomical units** from the Sun (one AU is the Earth-Sun distance, about 150 million km), against an average of roughly 40 AU for Pluto. That is close to 6.9 billion km away. * **Size:** ARY News gave an early estimate of **600 to 1,500 km across**, a wide range that will narrow as more observations come in. NSF said only that it may be one of the largest dwarf planet candidates found. * **Who spotted it:** Matthew Holman, a senior astrophysicist at the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, first identified it on 13 October using software built with Kevin Napier to sift billions of detections of moving objects, according to ARY News. The team then found it in older Rubin and Dark Energy Camera images going back to 2016. ## Why nobody saw it before The object moves through a crowded star field near the plane of the Milky Way, NSF said, where a faint, slow-moving point of light is easily lost among thousands of stars. Rubin's camera, the largest ever built, photographs the whole southern sky every few nights, and its software flags anything that shifts position between visits. That repeat coverage is what picked it out. ## What happens next Astronomers will use other telescopes to measure how much light the object reflects and how it moves, which together give its size and orbit. To be named a dwarf planet under IAU rules, a body must orbit the Sun, be massive enough to have pulled itself into a nearly round shape, and not have cleared its orbit of other objects. Only after that will it get a permanent number and, later, a name. For readers in Pakistan, there is nothing to see with the naked eye or a backyard telescope: an object this small and far away is visible only to the largest survey instruments. The public can follow Rubin's discoveries through the observatory's Orbitviewer web app, which NSF pointed to in its announcement. ## The bigger picture Rubin began its ten-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time this year and has already reported thousands of new asteroids. Astronomers expect it to find many more distant icy worlds in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune, the region where Pluto, Eris and Makemake orbit. Each one helps test ideas about how the solar system formed, including the long-running search for an undiscovered large planet far beyond Neptune. Curious how old you would be on a slower-moving world? Our [age calculator](/tools/government/age-calculator) gives your exact age in Earth years, days and hours. ## Frequently asked questions **What is 2026 ED138?** It is a dwarf planet candidate orbiting beyond Pluto, found by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory and announced by the US National Science Foundation on 27 October 2026. It has not yet been confirmed as a dwarf planet. **How many dwarf planets are there?** Five are officially recognised: Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Haumea and Makemake. If confirmed, 2026 ED138 would be the sixth. ## Sources - New dwarf planet candidate discovered by NSF-DOE Rubin Observatory (US National Science Foundation): https://nsf.gov/news/new-dwarf-planet-candidate-discovered-nsf-doe-rubin - New dwarf planet discovered orbiting beyond Pluto (ARY News): https://arynews.tv/new-dwarf-planet-discovered-orbiting-beyond-pluto How to cite: "New dwarf planet candidate 2026 ED138 found beyond Pluto by Rubin Observatory", Searchable, 29 Oct 2026, https://searchable.pk/news/science/new-dwarf-planet-candidate-2026-ed138-found-beyond-pluto-by-rubin-observatory