A view of the solar system showing the orbital pathway of dwarf planet candidate 2026 ED138, discovered in data from the Simonyi Survey telescope at the NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory.

NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory / NOIRLab / SLAC / AURA / R. Proctor

The Rubin Observatory has only just begun its 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time, and already it boasts a first crop of more than 1,000 newly discovered objects beyond Neptune’s orbit, known as trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). The discoveries include two of the brightest ever seen: The two bodies, 2026 ED 138 and 2026 EE 138 , are the 9 th and 33 rd brightest TNOs, cataloged in NASA’s Small-Body Database as of this morning.…