Scrawny dwarf planet named Goblin found well beyond Pluto

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – A scrawny dwarf planet nicknamed the Goblin has been discovered well beyond Pluto.

A round frozen world just 186 miles across, the Goblin was spotted by astronomers in 2015 around Halloween, thus its spooky name. But it wasn't publicly unveiled until Tuesday following further observations.

Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science, one of the astronomers who made the discovery, says the Goblin is on the small end for a dwarf planet.

Its orbit around the sun is extremely elongated. At its most distant, the Goblin is 2,300 times farther from the sun than Earth. That's 2,300 astronomical units, or AU. One AU is the distance from Earth to the sun, or roughly 93 million miles.