Using large telescopes, astronomers have so far detected nearly 400 such potential comets beyond the orbit of Neptune. But there may be many more smaller bodies that are too faint to be seen with telescopes. The ambitious plan of the Taiwan-American Occultation Survey is to make a much more comprehensive inventory of these "midgets" of the solar system.
在海王星之外，目前天文學者利用大型望遠鏡已找到近四百個這樣的潛在彗星，但對於亮度微弱、數量可能更多的「小東西」，仍無法以望遠鏡偵測，掩星計畫則頗具野心的準備要對這些小星體做個總清查。