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Dwarf Planet's Size Adjusted Upward, Now Third-Largest Behind Pluto and Eris

Accepted submission by takyon at 2016-05-13 06:45:48
Science

One of our solar system's largest unnamed dwarf planets, (225088) 2007 OR10 [wikipedia.org], is bigger than previously thought [space.com]:

A faraway object nicknamed "Snow White" is considerably larger than scientists had thought, and is in fact the third-largest dwarf planet in the solar system, a new study suggests.

Snow White [space.com] is about 955 miles (1,535 kilometers) in diameter rather than 795 miles (1,280 km) wide as previously believed, according to the new study. That makes it the largest still-unnamed object in our solar system, NASA officials said. (The dwarf planet has not yet been formally named and currently goes by the placeholder designation 2007 OR10.) NASA released a new video of the dwarf planet Snow White [space.com] along with its new size figures.

If the new measurement is accurate, the only known dwarf planets bigger than Snow White are Pluto and Eris, which are 1,475 miles (2,374 km) and 1,445 miles (2,236 km) across, respectively.

Release at JPL [nasa.gov].

LARGE SIZE AND SLOW ROTATION OF THE TRANS-NEPTUNIAN OBJECT (225088) 2007 OR10 DISCOVERED FROM HERSCHEL AND K2 OBSERVATIONS [iop.org] (DOI: 10.3847/0004-6256/151/5/117)


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