The 40,000 year orbit of a recently discovered dwarf planet, nicknamed “The Goblin” adds to growing circumstantial evidence of a yet unseen giant planet lurking in the icy dark region on the edge of the solar system.

As described in an article on Carnegie Science, The dwarf planet that was first discovered in 2015 has been designated 2015 TG387. It has been given formal recognition by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center. The most exciting aspect of this discovery is its extremely elongated orbit.

Astronomers have recently discovered a larger than expected number of hypervelocity stars passing through our galaxy. A few of these stars are now on course to exit the galaxy, while a others appear to be entering the galaxy, possibly after being ejected from other nearby galaxies.

When you think of the term “hypervelocity star”, you may picture a crashed Ferrari, or perhaps a drunken actor storming off a movie set. Now instead picture the estimated 250+ billion stars of the Milky Way all revolving together in lock step around the center of our galaxy. But then, traveling on a path of its own, a star flies by at an unimaginable speed of 5 million miles per hour. That is a hypervelocity star.

An asteroid traveling at over 28,000 miles per hour passed by the earth on May the 15th, 2018. Not an unusual occurrence at all, but what was alarming was that the asteroid (2010 WC9) had once been known and observed, but then had gone missing; astronomers had not seen it in nearly eight years.

This is the new reality of tracking near-earth objects (NEOs); as we constantly get better at spotting NEOs we are becoming increasingly aware of just how many there are whizzing around the the solar system in general, and of particular concern, how many asteroids there are that venture closer-in to the sun, nearer to the inner rocky planets – our neighborhood. Occasionally, as in the case of 2010 WC9, we can lose track of the orbital path of an asteroid.