The smallest ‘dwarf planet’ in our solar system was found by a team of astronomers. ‘ Hygiea’ , which was considered as a asteroid was now identified as a dwarf planet by a team of astronomers.
This new inclusion will raise the list of dwarf planets to six. At present there are five dwarf planets. They are Pluto, which is the best known one, followed by Eris, Makemake, Haumea, and Ceres (another asteroid) in order of decreasing size.
Located in the Main belt of asteroids which orbit between Mars and Jupiter, Hygiea till now was known as asteroid. For images, the scientists used data from the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet Research (SPHERE) instrument at the Very Large Telescope (VLT).
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