Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

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Home institution of the discovery team

On October 13, 2026, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory researcher Matthew Holman ran a search program over early data from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile. One dot stood out: it was bright, and brightness at that distance usually means size. Follow-up searches found the same object in 30 Rubin images from March to July, then in Dark Energy Camera images going back to 2016, and finally on a photographic plate exposed in 1937.

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