Astronomers spot mysterious rock more than 1.5 miles wide lingering at the edge of our solar system

Astronomers have detected a 1.5 mile (2.4km) wide rock hovering at the very edge of the solar system. 

Scientists claim that the mysterious object is the first ever sighting of its kind and could be a missing piece in the evolution of the early solar system, according to the Daily Mail. 

The large rock may hold key clues to discovering the secrets of how our star system was born.

It is being heralded as a crucial intermediate step towards knowing how small clouds of dust and ice turned into the planets we have today. 

It was found way beyond the outermost planet, Neptune in the Kuiper Belt, a circumstellar disc in the outer Solar System that holds a collection of small celestial icy objects; the most famous of these is the dwarf planet, Pluto.  

The icy bodies found here are believed to be remnants left over from the formation of the Solar System.   

Small bodies like asteroids in the inner Solar System have been altered by solar radiation, collisions, and the gravity of the planets over time.

But objects in the cold, dark Kuiper Belt preserve the pristine conditions of the early Solar System, which is why astronomers study them.  

Kuiper Belt Objects with a radii of one kilometer or more have been thought to exist, but they are too distant, small, and dim for telescopes to observe directly. 

But, the research team at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan experimented by using a technique known as occultation.

Thе approach involves monitoring a large number of stars and watching for the shadow of an object to pass in front of one of the stars. 

Led by astronomer Ko Arimatsu, the team placed two 28 cm telescopes on Miyako Island in Okinawa and surveilled approximately 2000 stars for a total of 60 hours.

They found that one star appeared to dim as a 1.6 mile (2.4km) wide object's shadow was thought to have obscured it.