Earth was long thought to be the only planet in our solar system with an ocean, but it is beginning to look as though there are underground oceans inside even the most surprising icy bodies.
A team co-led by Southwest Research Institute found evidence for hydrothermal or metamorphic activity within the icy dwarf planets Eris and Makemake, located in the Kuiper Belt. Methane detected on their surfaces has the ...
The Kuiper Belt, the vast region at the edge of our solar system populated by countless icy objects, is a treasure trove of scientific discoveries. The detection and characterization of Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs), sometimes ...
Impact cratering happens on every solid body in the solar system. In fact, it is the dominant process affecting the surfaces on most extraterrestrial bodies today.
Object 90377 Sedna—a distant trans-Neptunian object known best for its highly elliptical, 11,390-year long orbit—is currently on its way toward perihelion (its closest approach to the sun) in 2076. After that, Sedna will ...
Scientists have unraveled a fascinating new insight into how the landscape of the dwarf-planet Pluto has formed.
The accretion of new material during Pluto's formation may have generated enough heat to create a liquid ocean that has persisted beneath an icy crust to the present day, despite the dwarf planet's orbit far from the sun ...
A trio of researchers with the University of Hawaii has developed a new theory to explain how the dunes on Saturn's largest moon, Titan, may have formed. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, Matthew Abplanalp, ...
Triton orbits Neptune, the eighth planet from the Sun, some 2.7 billion miles from Earth—at the cold outer fringe of the Solar System's major planet zone. Surface temperatures hover near absolute zero, so low that common ...
A Southwest Research Institute team using internal research funds has made several discoveries that expand the range and value of a future Pluto orbiter mission. The breakthroughs define a fuel-saving orbital tour and demonstrate ...
