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A team of astronomers in Japan has detected a thin atmosphere around (612533) 2002 XV93, a trans-Neptunian object about 500 km in diameter — an object far too small and cold to retain one. An artist’s conception of the trans-Neptunian object 2002 XV93. Image credit: NAOJ. “In the cold reaches of the outer Solar System lie thousands of small objects known as trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) because they lie outside the orbit of Neptune,” said Dr. Ko Arimatsu from Ishigakijima Astronomical Observatory and colleagues. “A thin atmosphere has been observed around Pluto, the most famous TNO, but studies of other TNOs...

The object, 2000 EB173, was found in March using data collected by a 39-inch (1-meter) telescope at the CIDA Observatory in Venezuela. The space rock is estimated at about one-quarter the size of Pluto and joins a club of more than 300 other "trans-Neptunian objects," small bodies that orbit the Sun beyond Neptune... Charles Baltay, a Yale University physicist who headed up the investigation [said] ... "We believe that this thing has been orbiting since the formation of the solar system. So it's the primordial stuff, and it's bright enough that we can study it in detail." The object appears...