PASADENA, March 14 (UPI) -- U.S. astronomers have discovered a new world in the farthest reaches of our solar system, but whether it's truly a planet will be a subject of debate.
The object was found in an outer solar system survey by Michael Brown, associate professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology, Spaceref.com reported Sunday. Brown made the discovery using the recently launched Spitzer Space Telescope, which detects infrared images.
The object, named Sedna for the Inuit goddess of the ocean, is about six billion miles beyond Earth in the region known as the Kuiper Belt, the BBC reported,
Initial observations put its size at 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) across, and it could be larger than Pluto which is 2,250 kilometers (1,400 miles).
Even if it is bigger than Pluto, that won't make it a planet in some astronomers' minds. There's been a movement to declassify Pluto's status as a planet.
For Brown, it's a major discovery whatever it's called.
"Sedna is very big, and much further out than previous discoveries," he said. "I'm pretty sure there are other large bodies up there too."
