New Horizons returns first of the best images of Pluto
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has sent back the first in a series of the sharpest views of Pluto it obtained during its July flyby -- and the best close-ups of Pluto that humans may see for decades.
View ArticleEvidence of a real ninth planet discovered
Researchers have found evidence of a giant planet tracing a bizarre, highly elongated orbit in the outer solar system. The object, which the researchers have nicknamed Planet Nine, has a mass about 10...
View ArticleEarth-like planets have Earth-like interiors
Every school kid learns the basic structure of the Earth: a thin outer crust, a thick mantle, and a Mars-sized core. But is this structure universal? Will rocky exoplanets orbiting other stars have the...
View ArticlePluto’s ‘Hulk-like’ moon Charon: A possible ancient ocean?
Pluto's largest moon may have gotten too big for its own skin. Images from NASA's New Horizons mission suggest that Pluto's moon Charon once had a subsurface ocean that has long since frozen and...
View ArticleSearching for planet 9
Using observations from the Cassini spacecraft, a team of astronomers has been able to specify the possible positions of a ninth planet in the Solar System.
View ArticleWhat's eating at Pluto?
Far in the western hemisphere, scientists on NASA's New Horizons mission have discovered what looks like a giant "bite mark" on Pluto's surface. They suspect it may be caused by a process known as...
View ArticleNew data from flyby of Pluto
Pluto's surface exhibits a wide variety of landscapes, results from five new studies. The dwarf planet has more differences than similarities with its large moon, Charon.
View ArticleStudent-built dust counter got few 'hits' on Pluto flyby
A student-built instrument riding on NASA's New Horizons spacecraft found only a handful of dust grains, the building blocks of planets, when it whipped by Pluto at 31,000 miles per hour last July.
View ArticleMultitasking New Horizons observed solar wind changes on journey to Pluto
In addition to its history-making encounter with Pluto last July, the New Horizons spacecraft also recorded significant changes in how the solar wind behaves far from the sun.
View ArticleHubble discovers moon orbiting the dwarf planet Makemake
Peering to the outskirts of our solar system, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a small, dark moon orbiting Makemake, the second brightest icy dwarf planet -- after Pluto -- in the Kuiper Belt.
View ArticlePlanet Nine: A world that shouldn't exist
Earlier this year scientists presented evidence for Planet Nine, a Neptune-mass planet in an elliptical orbit 10 times farther from our Sun than Pluto. Since then theorists have puzzled over how this...
View ArticleClose encounters of a tidal kind could lead to cracks on icy moons
Researchers are offering a new explanation as to how cracks on icy moons, such as Pluto's Charon, formed. Until now, it was thought that the cracks were the result of geodynamical processes, such as...
View ArticlePluto's polygons may have been formed by convection
On Pluto, icebergs floating in a sea of nitrogen ice are key to a possible explanation of the quilted appearance of the Sputnik Planum region of the dwarf planet's surface. Researchers have proposed...
View ArticlePluto as a cosmic lava lamp: Giant convective cells continually refresh dwarf...
Using computer models, New Horizons team members have been able to determine the depth of the layer of solid nitrogen ice within Pluto's distinctive 'heart' feature -- a large plain informally known as...
View ArticlePresent-day subsurface ocean on Pluto?
An updated thermal model for Pluto suggests that a liquid water ocean beneath the dwarf planet's ice shell is a fairly likely scenario, and that the ocean is probably still there today.
View ArticleMoon discovered over dwarf planet Makemake in the Kuiper Belt
Scientists have discovered an elusive, dark moon orbiting Makemake, one of the 'big four' dwarf planets populating the Kuiper Belt region at the edge of our solar system.
View ArticleHubble captures vivid auroras in Jupiter’s atmosphere
Astronomers are using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to study auroras -- stunning light shows in a planet's atmosphere -- on the poles of the largest planet in the Solar System, Jupiter.
View ArticleAstronomers discover new distant dwarf planet beyond Neptune
Astronomers have discovered a new dwarf planet orbiting in the disk of small icy worlds beyond Neptune. The new object is about 700 km in diameter and has one of the largest orbits for a dwarf planet....
View ArticleHunt for ninth planet reveals new extremely distant solar system objects
In the race to discover a proposed ninth planet in our Solar System, researchers have observed several never-before-seen objects at extreme distances from the Sun in our Solar System.
View ArticlePluto 'paints' its largest moon red
In June 2015, when the cameras on NASA's approaching New Horizons spacecraft first spotted the large reddish polar region on Pluto's largest moon, Charon, mission scientists knew two things: they'd...
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