Biden exists miles beyond larger Sedna (pictured), discovered in 2003
Astronomers have become aware of a frozen dwarf planet over 7 billion miles away from the sun.
Nicknamed “Biden,” it is the second planet to be discovered beyond Pluto, long declared a wasteland. In 2003, a planet named Sedna, named after the mythological Inuit goddess who created the sea creatures of the Arctic, was discovered.
The new object’s official title is 2012 VP113. It was tracked using a new camera on a ground telescope in Chile by Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., and Chad Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii. Trujillo was part of the team that found Sedna.
Jokingly and unofficially named after Vice President Joe Biden because of its initials VP, the planet measures about 280 miles across, only half the diameter of Sedna. It’s bone-chilling cold with a temperature of around minus 430 degrees Fahrenheit.
The planet was reportedly much fainter and pink, unlike the conspicuous red and shiny Sedna.
By contrast, Earth is about 7,900 miles across and located 93 million miles from the sun.
Read more at Mercury News.