Short answers, pulled from the story.
Astronomers Scott Sheppard and Chad Trujillo spotted 2012 VP113 on the 5th of November 2012. They observed the object through NOAO's 4-meter Víctor M. Blanco Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.
Scott Sheppard and Chad Trujillo named 2012 VP113 Biden because its provisional designation VP matched Joe Biden's role as Vice President of the United States in 2012. The team announced this informal name alongside the formal designation to the public on the 26th of March 2014.
Scientists estimate a diameter for 2012 VP113 around 500 kilometers assuming moderate geometric albedo typical of trans-Neptunian objects. Its surface displays moderately red coloring caused by radiation effects on frozen water, methane, and carbon dioxide over billions of years.
The object maintains the farthest perihelion distance among all known minor planets at approximately 80 astronomical units from the Sun. This closest approach exceeds even that of Sedna while its aphelion reaches only half the distance of that earlier discovery.
2012 VP113 had its last perihelion passage within months of September 1979 when no telescopes could detect such distant objects. Current orbital architecture shows arguments of perihelion clustered near 300 degrees alongside other extreme trans-Neptunian objects.