Spring night - one hour worth a thousand gold coins... --Su Tung P'o Largest Solar System Object Discovered since Pluto A newly discovered body in the outer reaches of the solar system is larger than all the objects in the asteroid belt combined, astronomers announced Monday. The object was first detected on June 2nd, but was kept quiet until a better determination of its size was available. The spherical planetoid, half the size of Pluto, is the largest found in the solar system since Clyde Tombaugh detected the ninth planet in 1930. It orbits the sun from a distance of about 6.4 billion kilometers in the trans-Neptunian region known as the Kuiper Belt. See the article and image in Sky and Telescope.