Astronomers have uncovered a surprising group of frozen bodies orbiting the Sun, far beyond the Kuiper Belt. Using the Subaru Telescope, in collaboration with NASA’s New Horizons mission, they have identified these objects at astonishing distances.
Fumi Yoshida, from the University of Occupational and Environmental Health Sciences and the Planetary Exploration Research Center, Chiba Institute of Technology, hailed the find as potentially groundbreaking. “If this is confirmed, it would be a major discovery,” Yoshida said in a statement.
The Subaru Telescope, located atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii, has been assisting New Horizons since its 2006 launch. New Horizons’ mission, which reached Pluto in 2015, has continued to explore the Kuiper Belt, a region of icy bodies beyond Neptune.

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Finding the Hidden 'Kuiper Belt 2'

Initially, Subaru faced challenges identifying Kuiper Belt objects due to the dense backdrop of the Milky Way. In 2004, Subaru discovered only 24 Kuiper Belt objects, all too distant for New Horizons to visit. However, Pluto’s movement into a less cluttered part of the sky has allowed Subaru’s Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) to detect 239 objects since 2020.

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Among these, 11 objects appear to be in a new region, distinct from the known Kuiper Belt. This new belt, referred to as “Kuiper Belt 2,” lies between 70 and 90 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun, much farther than the previously known Kuiper Belt, which extends up to 55 AU.

Implications for Solar System Understanding

Yoshida noted that understanding these distant objects could provide insights into the solar system’s formation and its comparison with other planetary systems. The discovery may challenge previous assumptions about the size of the Kuiper Belt and the solar nebula that formed our planetary system.

Evidence of these distant bodies was suggested by ongoing dust impacts detected by New Horizons and unexplained stellar occultations. Observations from other star systems also indicate that similar extended belts might exist elsewhere.

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Alan Stern, the principal investigator for New Horizons, expressed excitement about the find. “This discovery probably would not have been possible without the world-class capabilities of the Subaru Observatory,” he said.

The findings, set to be published in the Planetary Science Journal, hint at a vast, unexplored region of our solar system. The discovery of these distant objects suggests there may be many more to uncover, possibly including dwarf planets and the elusive Planet Nine.