Scientists discover new 'planet'

A MYSTERIOUS red "planet" has been discovered in our solar system, American scientists announced last night.

NASA researchers revealed details of the heavenly body seen orbiting Earth's sun.

Named Sedna, after the Inuit goddess of the ocean, the planetoid is eight billion miles away in the furthest reaches of the solar system, three times the distance from Earth than Pluto.

The find was made by Dr Michael Brown, associate professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology, as part of a NASA-funded research project.

Sedna is the second reddest object in the solar system after Mars. The body is believed to be about 1,250 miles across, but may even be larger than the furthest known planet, Pluto, which is 1,406 miles across and was discovered in 1930.

At the most distant point of its 10,500 year solar orbit Sedna is 84 billion miles from the sun. Over the next 72 years it will get even closer to Earth and appear brighter.

Dr Brown said: "The sun appears so small from that distance that you could completely block it out with the head of a pin."

"The last time Sedna was this close to the sun, Earth was just coming out of the last ice age. The next time it comes back, the world might again be a completely different place."

Whether the new discovery can actually be called a planet is likely to be debated by astro-physicists for months or even years to come. Many bodies of rock and ice exist in the region and there is still some argument over whether Pluto is a real "planet".

Sedna was first spotted on November 14, 2003.