Nine years after leaving Earth, the New Horizons spacecraft is at last drawing close to Pluto and on Sunday was expected to start shooting photographs of the dwarf planet.
Space Exploration
Jan 25, 2015
19
1896
Step outside on a clear night, and you can be sure of something our ancestors could only imagine: Every star you see likely plays host to at least one planet.
Astronomy
Apr 17, 2018
0
82
Almost 10 million years ago, a meteorite crashed into Earth. Hidden inside were 23 microscopic grains which tell the story of how Mars evolved.
Planetary Sciences
Oct 12, 2022
0
152
In 1930, astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered the fabled "Ninth Planet" (or "Planet X") while working at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. The existence of this body had been predicted previously based on perturbations ...
Astronomy
Apr 21, 2022
11
476
(PhysOrg.com) -- An international team of planet hunters has discovered as many as six low-mass planets around two nearby Sun-like stars, including two "super-Earths" with masses 5 and 7.5 times the mass of Earth. The researchers, ...
Astronomy
Dec 14, 2009
14
0
Could life exist around our nearest stellar neighbors? Led by the University of Sydney and supported by the Breakthrough Initiatives, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Saber Astronautics, this project aims to find out.
Astronomy
Nov 16, 2021
13
159
First discovered in 1930, Pluto was considered to be the ninth planet in our Solar System for many decades. And though its status has since been downgraded to that of a dwarf planet, thanks to the discovery of Eris in 2004, ...
Space Exploration
Jul 13, 2015
0
42
Pluto's surface has long been a blur to sky watchers on Earth, but a NASA spacecraft on Wednesday should provide the first high-resolution images of the distant dwarf planet after a historic flyby mission.
Space Exploration
Jul 15, 2015
11
1074
(Phys.org) —The Kepler team today reports on four years of observations from the W. M. Keck Observatory targeting Kepler's exoplanet systems, announcing results this week at the American Astronomical Society meeting in ...
Astronomy
Jan 10, 2014
8
0
Sputnik Planitia, a 1,000-kilometer wide basin within the iconic heart-shaped region observed on Pluto's surface, could be in its present location because accumulation of ice made the dwarf planet roll over, creating cracks ...
Space Exploration
Nov 16, 2016
1
467
