#Xv93

A relatively tiny world in the Kuiper belt, just 500 km in diameter, has an atmosphere after all, joining Pluto. Here's what we know today.

Astronomers are puzzling over another oddball on the edge of the solar system: This time, it's an icy object less than a quarter of Pluto's size with a thin atmosphere – a layer of gas that's not typically found around objects so small.

Worlds this small and distant are thought to be too cold and have too little surface gravity to hold onto gases. But the findings suggest that icy, rocky objects in the solar system's outer reaches are more dynamic than we thought

From Space.com: A tiny world at the edge of our solar system grew a mysterious atmosphere, and we don't know how

A team of professional and amateur Japanese astronomers have found evidence for a thin atmosphere around a small body in the outer solar system.…