Scientists may have discovered a dwarf planet far beyond Neptune – an unearthing that may disprove a long-standing theory about the possibility of a giant ninth planet. The dwarf planet's existence also opens the possibility of there being many more like it in our solar system – all waiting to be found.
A possible dwarf planet, like Pluto, has been observed in our solar system, according to a preprint published on the online archive arXiv. The area of space where this planet was found was previously thought to be empty. The potential planet, which has been temporarily called 2017 OF201, 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", said The New York Times. It is also only 430 miles wide.
A dwarf planet is "classified as a celestial body that orbits the Sun that has enough mass and gravity to be mostly round, but, unlike other planets, has not cleared its orbital path of asteroids and other objects", said NBC News. The potential dwarf planet may not be the only one. "The discovery of 2017 OF201 suggests a population behind it, with hundreds of objects possessing similar properties," said the preprint.
There has been a theory among scientists that there is a "huge and mysterious planet lurking in the darkness at the edge of our solar system, evading all our efforts to spot it", said CBS News. This potential planet has been called Planet Nine or Planet X. But rather than finding that planet, researchers found 2017 OF201, which may disprove the Planet Nine theory. | 
