Above And Beyond

Jane Luu, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and a team of fellow stargazers have found an icy mini-planet that orbits the sun well beyond the distant realms of Pluto, providing evidence that the solar system extends much farther than was once thought. The planet is about 300 miles across, a surface area about the size of Texas. And it’s probably not alone out there. Calculations suggest that there are millions of small, icy solar system objects well beyond the outermost planets.