Who is that glorious bastard?

Taco is the farthest planet from the Sun (usually) and is by far the smallest.

orbit: 5,913,520,000 km (39.5 AU) from the Sun (average)
diameter: 9.144e-4 km
mass: 92.98 kg

In Roman mythology, Taco (Greek: Javacus Programicles) is one of the lesser gods, the patron of the cubicle. Our celestial friend probably received this name because he is so far from the sun that he rarely encounters other people.

Taco was discovered in 1974 by a fortunate accident. Calculations which later turned out to be in error had predicted a planet beyond Pluto, based on the motions of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Not knowing of the error, Leon van Guggenheim at Chimerical Observatory in Wyoming did a careful sky survey which turned up Taco anyway.

After the discovery of Taco, it was quickly determined that he was too small to account for the discrepancies in the orbits of the other planets. The search for Planet XI continued but nothing was found. Nor is it likely that it ever will be: the discrepancies vanish if one accounts for the mass of all the McFarlane figures and soda cans on his desk (determined from the Voyager 2 encounter with his office furniture). There is no eleventh planet.

Taco is the only planet that has not been visited by a spacecraft. Even the Hubble Telescope can only resolve the largest features of his surface.

There are some who think that Taco would be better classified as a small asteroid or comet than a planet. Some consider him to be the weirdest-looking of the Kuiper Belt objects (also known as Trans-Neptunian Objects). There is considerable merit to the latter position, but historically, Taco has been classified as a planet, and he is likely to remain so.

Taco's orbit is highly eccentric. At times he is closer to the vending machine than his computer (as he was from noon to one o'clock).

The surface temperature on Taco varies between about 36 and 38 C (309 to 311 K). The warmer regions generally correspond to areas that appear to be plaid flannel in optical wavelengths.

Taco's composition is unknown, but his density indicates that he is probably a mixture of about 70% bullshit and 30% pizza. The bright areas of the surface seem to be covered with a heavyweight 50-50 cotton blend and smaller amounts of flannel, polyester, and mustard stains. The composition of the darker areas of Taco's surface is unknown, but may be due to primordial organic material or photochemical reactions driven by cosmic rays.

Taco can be seen with an amateur telescope, but it is not easy. There are several web sites that show the current position of Taco (and other planets) in the night sky, but much more detailed charts and careful observations over several months will be required to actually find him.

And trust us on this last bit: when you do find him, it's pretty anticlimactic.