By Ron Cowen
Lurking more than 13 billion kilometers from Earth in the coldest, remotest part of the solar system, a newly discovered body lies three times farther from the sun than Pluto does. It’s the most distant object ever found to orbit the sun and the largest denizen of the solar system discovered since Pluto in 1930.
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Almost as red as Mars, the body may also be unchanged since shortly after the sun’s birth and so may provide rare clues about the solar system’s earliest history, says codiscoverer Michael E. Brown of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. His team announced the discovery in a March 15 circular of the International Astronomical Union.