https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. A new study led by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) provides evidence that liquid nitrogen is rising to Pluto's surface through cracks at the northern edge of Sputnik Planitia, part of the massive heart-shaped glacier on the dwarf planet's surface. This is the first evidence of liquid flow occurring recently on Pluto. The study is based on data from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft and led by SwRI Associate Vice President Dr. Alan Stern, the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-liquid-nitrogen-pluto-heart-glacier.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 06 Aug 2026 09:00:05 EDT news705225241 Pluto is on an icy march away from the sun. In 2114, it will turn back, but until then, its elliptical orbit will carry it to colder and darker parts of the outer solar system. This is Pluto's first time entering the outer solar system since its 1930 discovery, and along this journey, its atmosphere could slowly freeze out. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-pluto-hazy-atmosphere-collapsing-sun.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 03 Aug 2026 10:40:04 EDT news704971081 In 1989, the Voyager 2 mission discovered six new moons orbiting Neptune, including five tiny ones that orbit just outside the planet's main rings. Because of their small sizes and locations, these satellites have been difficult to study from Earth. Now, using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a team of Caltech researchers has observed Neptune's rings and three of those moons—Larissa, Galatea and Proteus—and found that their composition is unique among outer solar system bodies. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-neptune-moons-shattered-ancient-icy.html Space Exploration Thu, 30 Jul 2026 10:00:06 EDT news704623381 Evidence of the slowing of Charon's spin period (despinning) is recorded in tectonic features on the surface of Pluto's icy moon, according to a modeling study published in Nature Communications. The findings offer insights into the early thermal evolution of Charon and other icy satellites in the outer solar system. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-pluto-moon-charon.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 14 Jul 2026 13:38:00 EDT news703255062 Scientists have detected evidence of landslides on Pluto for the first time. A paper published in the journal Icarus reports that images taken by the New Horizons spacecraft during a flyby revealed six large landslides in three impact craters. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-massive-landslides-icy-pluto.html Astrobiology Mon, 13 Jul 2026 15:30:02 EDT news703172932 Following its longest hibernation period ever of nearly a year, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has emerged in good health and is ready to begin transmitting science data gathered in the distant Kuiper Belt far beyond Pluto. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-nasa-horizons-spacecraft-hibernation-good.html Space Exploration Tue, 07 Jul 2026 21:00:02 EDT news702655742 A new Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) study based on data from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has uncovered insights into why the solar wind gradually slows as it moves toward the edge of the solar system and the boundary with interstellar space. The study "The Gradual Slowing of the Solar Wind in the Outer Heliosphere" is published in The Astrophysical Journal. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-horizons-tracks-solar-slowdown-interstellar.html Astronomy Mon, 29 Jun 2026 19:20:31 EDT news701963730 Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) scientists are using a solar wind forecasting method combined with analytic and numerical heliosphere models to find out where the first plasma boundary of the outer heliosphere lies as NASA's New Horizons spacecraft hurtles toward this mysterious region of space. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-solar-heliosphere-boundaries.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 22 Jun 2026 18:10:01 EDT news701364782 Researchers are constantly sifting through new spectral data gathered by powerful telescopes, like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Most of the time, when they identify spectral features—specific absorption or emission lines from different types of light gathered from a planet, moon or star—these features are known to be caused by certain atoms or molecules. For example, the emission line at 426.7 nanometers is known to come from singly ionized carbon, representing a specific atomic transition between energy states of a carbon ion. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-titan-pluto-mysterious-spectral-feature.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 22 Jun 2026 12:00:04 EDT news701346373 A team of professional and amateur Japanese astronomers have found evidence for a thin atmosphere around a small body in the outer solar system. The object is so small that it should not have a sustainable atmosphere, raising questions about when and how the atmosphere formed. Future observations to better characterize the atmosphere will help solve these mysteries. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-tiny-world-neptune-atmosphere-shouldnt.html Astronomy Mon, 04 May 2026 11:00:09 EDT news697097941 University of Warwick astronomers have uncovered the chemical fingerprint of a frozen, water-rich planetary fragment being consumed by a white dwarf star outside our solar system. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-icy-planetesimal-high-nitrogen-content.html Astrobiology Sat, 27 Sep 2025 08:30:01 EDT news677752155 In our nearby stellar neighborhood, a burned-out star is snacking on a fragment of a Pluto-like object. With its unique ultraviolet capability, only NASA's Hubble Space Telescope could identify that this meal is taking place. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-hubble-white-dwarf-piece-pluto.html Astronomy Thu, 18 Sep 2025 12:06:03 EDT news677415961 A Southwest Research Institute-led team has reported the first detection of gas on the distant dwarf planet Makemake, using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). This discovery makes Makemake only the second trans-Neptunian object, after Pluto, where the presence of gas has been confirmed. The gas was identified as methane. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-methane-gas-dwarf-planet-makemake.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 09 Sep 2025 13:29:03 EDT news676643341 The first observations of Pluto by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reveal dramatic phenomena on its surface, like seasonal cycles of volatile ice redistribution across its surface, and material being pulled from its very atmosphere onto its main satellite, Charon—an eerie interaction that happens nowhere else in our solar system. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-crazy-idea-cooling-effects-pluto.html Astronomy Tue, 03 Jun 2025 12:53:04 EDT news668173981 It's an evocative idea that has long bedeviled scientists: a huge and mysterious planet is lurking in the darkness at the edge of our solar system, evading all our efforts to spot it. https://phys.org/news/2025-05-mysterious-planet.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 29 May 2025 05:01:31 EDT news667713684 A small team led by Sihao Cheng, Martin A. and Helen Chooljian Member in the Institute for Advanced Study's School of Natural Sciences, has discovered an extraordinary trans-Neptunian object (TNO), named 2017 OF201, at the edge of our solar system. https://phys.org/news/2025-05-extreme-cousin-pluto-dwarf-planet.html Astronomy Thu, 22 May 2025 10:37:10 EDT news667129026 The NASA New Horizons spacecraft's extensive observations of Lyman-alpha emissions have resulted in the first-ever map from the galaxy at this important ultraviolet wavelength, providing a new look at the galactic region surrounding our solar system. The findings are described in a new study authored by the SwRI-led New Horizons team. https://phys.org/news/2025-04-horizons-lyman-alpha-galaxy.html Astronomy Mon, 28 Apr 2025 11:56:47 EDT news665060200 Venus—a hot planet pocked with tens of thousands of volcanoes—may be even more geologically active near its surface than previously thought. New calculations by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis suggest that the planet's outer crust may be constantly churning, an unexpected phenomenon called convection that could help explain many of the volcanoes and other features of the Venusian landscape. https://phys.org/news/2025-03-convection-crust-venus-volcanoes.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 31 Mar 2025 09:21:03 EDT news662631660 The puzzle of predicting how three gravitationally bound bodies move in space has challenged mathematicians for centuries, and has most recently been popularized in the novel and television show "3 Body Problem." There's no problem, however, with what a team of researchers say is likely a stable trio of icy space rocks in the solar system's Kuiper Belt, found using data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the ground-based W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. https://phys.org/news/2025-03-hubble-kuiper-belt-duo-trio.html Astronomy Tue, 04 Mar 2025 12:46:03 EST news660314761 Billions of years ago, in the frigid outer reaches of our solar system, two icy worlds collided. Rather than destroying each other in a cosmic catastrophe, they spun together like a celestial snowman, finally separating while remaining forever linked in orbit. This is how Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, originated, according to a University of Arizona study that challenges decades of scientific assumptions. https://phys.org/news/2025-01-newly-capture-mechanism-formation-pluto.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 06 Jan 2025 11:00:01 EST news655374421 New studies led by researchers at the University of Central Florida offer for the first time a clearer picture of how the outer solar system formed and evolved based on analyses of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) and centaurs. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-webb-glimpse-icy-planetesimals-early.html Astronomy Thu, 19 Dec 2024 10:22:30 EST news653826143 Trying to understand the makeup and evolution of the solar system's Kuiper belt has kept researchers busy since it was hypothesized soon after the discovery of Pluto in 1930. In particular, binary pairs of objects there are useful as indicators since their existence today paints a picture of how energetic or violent the evolution of the solar system was in its early days four billion years ago. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-ultrawide-binary-kuiper-belt-earliest.html Astronomy Tue, 26 Nov 2024 07:25:11 EST news651756713 Mount Vesuvius, Krakatoa, Mount St. Helens: Since the formation of Earth approximately 4.5 billion years ago, the convection and release of hot magma in its mantle layer has famously led to some of the deadliest eruptions in history. But what if the same explosions occurred when a geological feature and nearby chemical compounds became too cold? https://phys.org/news/2024-11-student-reveals-extraterrestrial-explosions-hot.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 14 Nov 2024 09:56:44 EST news650800601 A Southwest Research Institute-led team combined compositional data of primitive bodies like Kuiper Belt objects, asteroids and comets with new solar data sets to develop a revised solar composition that potentially reconciles spectroscopy and helioseismology measurements for the first time. Helioseismology probes the sun's interior by analyzing the waves that travel through it, while spectroscopy reveals the surface composition based on the spectral signature produced by each chemical element. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-team-solar-composition-ratios-longstanding.html Astronomy Tue, 12 Nov 2024 12:25:03 EST news650636701 NASA's Webb Space Telescope has identified new clues about the surface of Pluto's largest moon. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-webb-telescope-carbon-dioxide-surface.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 01 Oct 2024 11:21:29 EDT news647000481 Survey observations using the Subaru Telescope's ultra-widefield prime focus camera have revealed that there may be a population of small bodies further out in the Kuiper Belt waiting to be discovered. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-outer-solar-populated-previously-thought.html Astronomy Thu, 05 Sep 2024 09:38:03 EDT news644747881 Just how dark is deep space? Astronomers may have finally answered this long-standing question by tapping into the capabilities and distant position of NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, by making the most precise, direct measurements ever of the total amount of light the universe generates. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-horizons-spacecraft-darkness-universe.html Astronomy Thu, 29 Aug 2024 10:16:04 EDT news644145361 An ocean of liquid water deep beneath the icy surface of Pluto is coming into focus thanks to new calculations by Alex Nguyen, a graduate student in Earth, environmental and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. https://phys.org/news/2024-05-peering-pluto-ocean-mathematical-images.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 21 May 2024 12:01:04 EDT news635511661 The mystery of how Pluto got a giant heart-shaped feature on its surface has finally been solved by an international team of astrophysicists led by the University of Bern and members of the National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS. The team is the first to successfully reproduce the unusual shape with numerical simulations, attributing it to a giant and slow oblique-angle impact. https://phys.org/news/2024-04-astrophysicists-mystery-heart-feature-surface.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 15 Apr 2024 11:52:25 EDT news632400739 New observations from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft hint that the Kuiper Belt—the vast, distant outer zone of our solar system populated by hundreds of thousands of icy, rocky planetary building blocks—might stretch much farther out than we thought. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-nasa-horizons-dusty-hints-kuiper.html Astronomy Tue, 20 Feb 2024 12:10:05 EST news627653401