Three more mini-Plutos found and six others are being tracked out of hundreds of dwarf planets that are expected

Last week astronomers reported the discovery of 2012 VP113 – nicknamed “Joe Biden” after the vice president, or VP, of the US. This potential dwarf planet was spotted on the outer fringes of the solar system, in a region called the inner Oort cloud. Days later, the same team reported two more potential dwarfs, known as 2013 FY27 and 2013 FZ27.

Both of these objects are in the Kuiper belt, a grouping of relatively small bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune that is also home to Pluto and three other known dwarf planets. Astronomers suspect the Kuiper belt is littered with dwarfs, but many either reflect too little light or are too distant to have been visible in previous sky surveys.

Nextbigfuture previously covered the discovery of VP113 (Biden dwarf planet)

Nature – At 450 kilometres across, 2012 VP113 is about half the size of Sedna. If, as scientists expect, it is made mostly of ice, then its gravity probably pulls it into a spherical shape. This would qualify it as a dwarf planet under the revised rules of planethood drawn up by the IAU in 2006.

FZ27 sits 50 astronomical units away from the sun, on the far edge of the Kuiper belt (1 AU is Earth’s distance from the sun). At about 600 kilometers wide [this would be larger than Palles the second largest asteroid], the object is probably massive enough for it to have become nearly round under its own gravity – one of the criteria for being classified as a dwarf planet. The other recently discovered object, FY27, is probably about 1000 kilometers [this would be larger than Ceres the largest Asteroid] across and was found roughly 80 AU from the sun.

This list of dwarf planets out in the Kuiper and inner Oort cloud is now outdated

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