Astronomers have discovered a new PINK planet on the edge of our Solar System.The dwarf planet – given the name 2012 VP 113 by scientists – is 80 times further from the Sun than Earth.It is 280 miles in diameter and is in a distant area of the Solar System way beyond Pluto once thought to contain no planets at all.The pink-tinged lump of ice and rock circles the sun at a greater distance than any known object, never getting closer than 12bn km (7bn miles).
The object – dubbed ‘VP’ or ‘Biden’ after the US Vice President – is only the second to be found in a mysterious region at the boundary between the Solar System and outer space called the inner Oort Cloud.Astronomers now believe there may be thousands of previously unknown objects orbiting the Sun at this distance.“There’s something joyous in the fact there are still things to be discovered.” Said Chris Lintott, an astronomer at the University of Oxford,
