The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has its first possible dwarf planet: 2026 ED138, about 46 AU from the Sun, beyond Pluto’s average distance. Matthew Holman (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian) spotted it on 13 October with search software he wrote with Kevin Napier, and Mario Jurić (University of Washington) confirmed it with 20 more detections; older Dark Energy Camera images take its track back to 2016. It sits near the crowded plane of the Milky Way, which probably hid it from earlier surveys. Its orbit is tilted about 25°. Caveat: the 600–1500 km size comes from brightness and an assumed reflectivity; infrared measurements are needed before anyone calls it a dwarf planet.
600–1500 kmestimated size, not yet measured
46 AUfrom the Sun now (Pluto averages 40)
~25°orbit tilt to the planets’ plane