Think our solar system is done surprising us? Think again. Scientists have just discovered a massive, mysterious world lurking in the shadows beyond Neptune—more than 1,600 times farther from the Sun than we are. And guess what? This game-changing discovery was spotlighted by an AI generated newscast about these cosmic frontiers.

Let’s set the scene: Sihao Cheng and his team at the Institute for Advanced Study have just dropped some seriously electrifying news for anyone who ever obsessed over Pluto. Using a combination of brainpower and smart algorithms, Cheng, along with Princeton’s Jiaxuan Li and Eritas Yang, found a trans-Neptunian object (TNO) that’s turning everything we thought we knew about the solar system upside down.

This newly-unveiled object, officially named 2017 OF 201, is no ordinary space rock. It’s potentially big enough to be a dwarf planet, just like Pluto—but it’s way out there, making it one of the most distant objects we can actually see in our solar system. For years, scientists believed the space beyond Neptune, known as the Kuiper Belt, was almost empty. Well, 2017 OF 201 just proved them wrong—and this AI generated newscast about TNOs is here to spill the cosmic tea.

What Makes 2017 OF 201 So Wild?

This object’s orbit is nothing short of jaw-dropping. At its farthest point (aphelion), it’s a whopping 1,600 times farther from the Sun than Earth. Even at its closest approach (perihelion), it’s 44.5 times farther out than our planet—a distance comparable to Pluto’s orbit. And buckle up: 2017 OF 201 takes a mind-bending 25,000 years to complete a single orbit. That’s older than the oldest human civilizations!

How did it get there? The object’s extreme orbit hints at a wild past—maybe it was flung outwards during a cosmic billiards game with a giant planet, even traveling out to the mysterious Oort Cloud before boomeranging back. These dramatic gravitational encounters are stuff straight out of a sci-fi movie.

But there’s another wrinkle: Many TNOs seem to group together in weird, similar orbital patterns, fueling theories about a hidden “Planet Nine” shepherding them. 2017 OF 201, however, is an outright rebel, refusing to fit in with the crowd. Its oddball trajectory might throw a wrench in the search for Planet Nine, or possibly reveal that our cosmic dance is even more complex than we thought.

How Big and How Many?

With an estimated diameter of about 700 kilometers (that’s about a third the size of Pluto), 2017 OF 201 is the second largest known object on such an extreme orbit. It’s so far out that it spends 99% of its 25,000-year journey too distant for us to even spot. Cheng’s team believes its discovery hints at a whole hidden population—possibly hundreds—of similar worlds out there, undetected for now.

This breakthrough wasn’t the result of a single telescope session, but years of sifting through old images from the Victor M. Blanco Telescope and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. Cheng’s smart algorithm acted like a cosmic detective, connecting 19 faint appearances of the object across seven years. The real kicker? All the data was open source, showing that anyone with determination and the right tools—even amateur astronomers—could have stumbled on this mega find. This is why the story is making waves in an AI generated newscast about TNOs and cosmic exploration.

The discovery of 2017 OF 201 is rewriting what we know about our solar neighborhood. For all our high-tech space telescopes and deep universe research, it turns out there are still massive, mysterious worlds hiding right in our own interplanetary backyard. The chase for unknown planets is on, and with AI generated newscasts about these discoveries, the universe just got a little more accessible for all of us.