"These smaller
Kuiper Belt objects are much too small to really see with any telescopes at such a great distance," said SwRI's Dr.
It's located in the
Kuiper belt, a region about 3 billion miles from the sun.
It was demoted to the status of "dwarf planet" after the discovery of other Pluto-like, ice-and-rock worlds orbiting beyond Neptune in the
Kuiper Belt.
The
Kuiper Belt is a vast debris field of icy bodies left over from the solar system's formation 4.6 billion years ago.
Dwarf planets are not considered to be true planets mainly because they have not cleared their orbital path of other material they exist in populated regions such as the Asteroid Belt and the
Kuiper Belt. In 2008, the IAU also introduced another classification, that of a plutoid.
It is about as wide as Pluto, which is also part of the
Kuiper belt. It even has two moons.
The object is one of about 100,000 icy bodies that lie in a ring known as the "
Kuiper Belt" on the outer fringe of the Solar System, more than four billion kilometres (2.5 billion miles) from the sun.
The new data seem to be lending weight to the theory that Phoebe began life in the distant
Kuiper Belt, the home of icy comets.
Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) like Quaoar may be leftovers from the creation of our solar system, scientists say.