Scientists have discovered a new dwarf planet hiding in the solar system. 

The International Astronomical Union has confirmed that the new planet named 2014 UZ224 is likely to join the five established dwarf planets namely Puto, Eris, Makemake, Ceres, and Haumea. Physicist David Gerdes and a group of undergraduate students from the University of Michigan discovered the planet lurking on the edges of the Kuiper belt.

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The discovery of the new dwarf planet was made possible using a Dark Energy Camera called the "DECam," which Gerdes helped developed. He explained that the camera was designed to capture images in far off distances. The camera is sensitive enough to detect even the faintest light which could be 100,000 miles away.

Using a software created by his team, they were able to estimate the planet's orbit around the sun. The scientists reported that it would take about 1,100 years for the new dwarf planet to make a single loop of the Sun. It's estimated distance is about 8.5 billion miles (13.6 billion kilometers) away from the Sun.

Mike Brown from the California Institute of Technology explained that anything larger than 248 miles (400 kilometers) in diameter in the Kuiper belt is considered to be round, and can thus qualify as a dwarf planet.

It can be said that the discovery of the new dwarf planet was accidental. Scientists were targeting to unravel a planet hidden in the far-off regions solar system, which is said to be 10 times larger than the Earth. Instead, the 204 UZ224 was discovered.