Free Astronomy Magazine

DWARF PLANETS 40 MAY-JUNE 2014 The discovery of a dwarf planet, smaller but more distant than Sedna, expands the boundaries of the planetary system up to 80 astronomical units from the Sun. But what’s more interesting is a parameter of that new dwarf planet’s orbit which seems to indi- cate the existence of a super-Earth at an even greater distance. 2012 VP 113 is away than T he spotlight was not yet off Luhman and Kirkpatrick’s works (see article page 28), that rumours of a discovery capable of recalling into question the scena- rio just outlined by these same works were already starting to circulate. The rumours proclaimed the existence of something very interesting beyond the orbit of Neptune. The allusion to a planet was clear, but since we had just about finished commenting the latest results from the observations of WISE, we knew very well that we could not expect the discovery of a large planet, and T his artistic glimpse of the Plutonian landscape can be utilized to get an idea of how the Sun (top right) would appear, seen from the more remote ob- ject of the plan- etary system, 2012 VP 113 . [ESO-L. Calçada] hoped for at least a dwarf planet larger than Pluto and Eris. But in the end not even that. In fact, on 26 Mar 2014 it was disclos- ed the content of an article to be published the day after in Nature (the International weekly journal of science), in which it was going to be announced the official discovery of a dwarf planet with a diameter of only 450 km. But this is the only disappointing aspect emerging from that article, since ev- erything else is of considerable interest and has direct implications for understanding better the evolution of the solar system.