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VANCOUVER, July 13 (Xinhua) -- A group of professional stargazers have found a large "dwarf planet" beyond Neptune in a discovery that could lead to a much better understanding of our solar system.
The newly-found icy object, dubbed RR245, orbits the sun every 700 earth years and its diameter is about one third of Pluto, which was the 9th planet in the solar system for decades before being reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006.
The research team first spotted RR245 in February this year, after examining telescope images taken as part of the ongoing Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS).
Such discoveries "let us piece together the history of our solar system," an article published on July 12 on the National Geographic website cited Michele Bannister, a member of the OSSOS team, as saying.
"I think it's wonderful that Pluto has so much family -- that it is part of a much bigger story," said Bannister, from the the University of Victoria in Canada.
Dwarf planets are smaller than ordinary planets and orbit the sun at a much greater distance. They have a nearly round shape like planets, but they have not cleared the neighborhood around its orbit, and is not a satellite, according to the International Astronomical Union.
It is believed there are dozens of them in our Solar System, but only a few have been identified so far.
