"There are 100 billion galaxies in the universe, and in each galaxy there are around 100 billion stars.  Around any single star there might be another solar system, so the odds are high that there is life out there somewhere."

The Chicago sky may not be the best for stargazing, but that did not discourage young Chad Trujillo.  He was fascinated by the heavens as a child, and he knew then that he wanted to explore the stars. An enthusiastic student who excelled at math and science, he enrolled in MIT to study physics when he found himself drawn to the Institute's prestigious astronomy programs. He accepted a chance to continue his graduate studies at the University of Hawaii because of that school's excellent graduate program in astronomy. For postdoctoral studies, he moved on to Cal Tech, where he became involved in the search for yet-undiscovered planets.

Today Chad Trujillo, Ph.D., is back on the "Big Island" of Hawaii, pursuing postdoctoral research at the Gemini Telescope, one of the major telescopes in the U.S. He is working as a science fellow and pursuing his love of adaptive optics, or using instruments to correct for the Earth's atmosphere so that the telescope's resolution quality is equal to--or surpasses--that of the famed Hubble Space Telescope.

And he has already seen one of his dreams come true: he helped discover a mini-planet, which he and his co-discoverers have named Sedna, within our solar system.

This small planet orbits our Sun far beyond Pluto, 60 percent farther from the sun than any other planetary object discovered thus far in our solar system. Sedna is about one- to two-thirds the size of Pluto in diameter, while Pluto is about 30 percent smaller than our moon.

Sedna is unusual primarily because of its orbit, Trujillo told us during a recent interview from his lab. 

"It is currently 1.6 times farther away than any other solar system object, and the closest it ever gets to the sun is about twice as far as Pluto's distance. We know of no other object who's closest approach is so far away.  That's scientifically significant in that it means we must come up with an explanation for how such an object got there."

To put the scientific importance of this finding into perspective, the last time a new planet was found in our solar was in 1930, when Pluto was discovered.  But new technology is making new discoveries possible. 

"In the last five years or so, several objects have been found in our solar system that are somewhat smaller than Pluto, such as Sedna," Trujillo points out.

He is still looking for new planets and one day hopes to find one larger than Pluto.  "Certainly there are planets bigger than Pluto orbiting the Sun that haven't been discovered yet, and the odds are something like fifty-fifty that we can find it with the equipment we are using."

While Chad Trujillo's stargazing is focused on our solar system, its significance does not end there.  As he explained it to us,  "A healthy society asks how things came to be the way they are. Exploring the outer reaches of our solar system gives us clues as to how it formed. This information can help us determine how systems around other stars might form. Ultimately, this may lead us to determine the probability of life occurring around other stars in the universe."

Astronomer Chad Trujillo is co-discoverer of the mini-planet Sedna, which orbits our Sun far beyond Pluto.