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. The Subaru Telescope has made an exciting discovery: a small body beyond Pluto, with implications for the formation, evolution, and current structure of the outer solar system. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-subaru-telescope-fossil-outer-solar.html Astronomy Wed, 16 Jul 2025 07:12:15 EDT news671868731 In the outer reaches of our solar system, far beyond the orbit of Pluto, lies Sedna, one of the most mysterious objects ever discovered. This reddish dwarf planet follows such an extreme orbit that it takes more than 11,000 years to complete a single journey around the sun. Now, scientists are proposing a new mission to reach this distant world using a revolutionary propulsion technology. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-propulsion-enable-mission-sedna.html Space Exploration Fri, 27 Jun 2025 12:08:04 EDT news670244881 New evidence suggests that billions of years ago, a star may have passed very close to our solar system. As a result, thousands of smaller celestial bodies in the outer solar system outside Neptune's orbit were deflected into highly inclined trajectories around the sun. It is possible that some of them were captured by the planets Jupiter and Saturn as moons. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-solution-cosmic-mystery-eccentric-orbits.html Planetary Sciences Fri, 06 Sep 2024 11:11:03 EDT news644839861 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 referred to as Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs), has led to a new understanding of the history of the solar system. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-jwst-kuiper-belt-sedna-gonggong.html Astronomy Mon, 16 Oct 2023 13:37:04 EDT news616682221 A 7.6-meter (25-foot) whale died on a beach in northern France on Monday, hours after being discovered washed up and alive but wounded, authorities said. https://phys.org/news/2022-11-wounded-whale-ashore-northern-france.html Ecology Mon, 07 Nov 2022 10:32:11 EST news587039529 Astronomers have searched for extraterrestrial civilizations in planetary systems for sixty years, to no avail. In the paper published by International Journal of Astrobiology, Cambridge University Press, and titled "Migrating extraterrestrial civilizations and interstellar colonization: Implications for SETI and SETA," Irina K. Romanovskaya proposes that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) may have more chances to become successful when including the search for migrating extraterrestrial civilizations. https://phys.org/news/2022-05-extraterrestrial-civilizations-colonize-galaxy-dont.html Astronomy Thu, 26 May 2022 17:30:01 EDT news572803105 The solar system has eight planets. In 2006, astronomers reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet, the same class that contains Eris, Sedna, Quaoar, Ceres and perhaps many more solar system small bodies. These are defined approximately as bodies that orbit the sun but that are not massive enough (unlike regular planets) to gravitationally dominate their environments by clearing away material. Astronomers wonder, though, whether there might not really be a ninth planet previously undiscovered but lurking in the outer reaches of the solar system, perhaps in the giant Oort cloud of objects that begins hundreds of astronomical units (au) from the sun and extends outward. https://phys.org/news/2022-03-planet.html Astronomy Mon, 14 Mar 2022 12:50:02 EDT news566477137 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 swing out into deep space again and won't be back for millennia, making this flyby a once-in-a-lifetime (or, once in ~113 lifetimes) opportunity to study an object from the far reaches of our solar system. There are no missions to Sedna in the works just yet, but astronomers are beginning to plan for the possibility, and the ideal launch date for such a mission is approaching fast, with two of the best launch windows coming up in 2029 and 2034. https://phys.org/news/2022-01-year-mission-sedna.html Space Exploration Wed, 05 Jan 2022 07:13:21 EST news560589198 A team of astronomers, including associate professor Chad Trujillo of Northern Arizona University's Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science, have confirmed a planetoid that is almost four times farther from the Sun than Pluto, making it the most distant object ever observed in our solar system. The planetoid, which has been nicknamed "Farfarout," was first detected in 2018, and the team has now collected enough observations to pin down its orbit. The Minor Planet Center has now given it the official designation of 2018 AG37. https://phys.org/news/2021-02-astronomers-orbit-distant-solar.html Astronomy Wed, 10 Feb 2021 15:00:01 EST news532174874 Beyond the orbit of Neptune, a diverse collection of thousands of dwarf planets and other relatively small objects dwells in a region called the Kuiper Belt. These often-pristine leftovers from our solar system's days of planet formation are called Kuiper Belt objects, or trans-Neptunian objects. NASA's upcoming James Webb Space Telescope will examine an assortment of these icy bodies in a series of programs called Guaranteed Time Observations shortly after its launch in 2021. The goal is to learn more about how our solar system formed. https://phys.org/news/2020-10-nasa-webb-graveyard-solar.html Astronomy Thu, 29 Oct 2020 09:04:08 EDT news523181045 The outermost reaches of our solar system are a strange place—filled with dark and icy bodies with nicknames like Sedna, Biden and The Goblin, each of which span several hundred miles across. https://phys.org/news/2020-07-power-solar-dark-icy-bodies.html Astronomy Tue, 07 Jul 2020 11:01:14 EDT news513338471 Early this year, the Eduard Toll set a record: laden with liquefied natural gas, the tanker was the first commercial vessel to cross the Arctic in winter without an icebreaker. https://phys.org/news/2018-12-arctic-ice-shipping-routes.html Environment Mon, 17 Dec 2018 08:10:01 EST news464254925 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 that an orbiter can continue exploration in the Kuiper Belt after surveying Pluto. These and other results from the study will be reported this week at a workshop on future Pluto and Kuiper Belt exploration at the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences meeting in Knoxville, Tennessee. https://phys.org/news/2018-10-team-breakthroughs-pluto-orbiter-mission.html Space Exploration Wed, 24 Oct 2018 16:28:33 EDT news459617303 Carnegie's Scott Sheppard and his colleagues—Northern Arizona University's Chad Trujillo, and the University of Hawaii's David Tholen—are once again redefining our Solar System's edge. They discovered a new extremely distant object far beyond Pluto with an orbit that supports the presence of an even-farther-out, Super-Earth or larger Planet X. https://phys.org/news/2018-10-extremely-distant-solar-planet.html Astronomy Tue, 02 Oct 2018 10:00:01 EDT news457686574 The solar system was formed from a protoplanetary disk consisting of gas and dust. Since the cumulative mass of all objects beyond Neptune is much smaller than expected and the bodies there mostly have inclined, eccentric orbits, it is likely that some process restructured the outer solar system after its formation. Susanne Pfalzner from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, and her colleagues present a study showing that a close fly-by of a neighbouring star can simultaneously lead to the observed lower mass density in the outer part of the solar system and excite the bodies there onto eccentric, inclined orbits. Their numerical simulations show that many additional bodies at high inclinations still await discovery, perhaps including the sometimes postulated "planet X." https://phys.org/news/2018-08-impact-stellar-intruder-solar.html Astronomy Thu, 09 Aug 2018 10:35:46 EDT news453029535 Bumper car-like interactions at the edges of our solar system—and not a mysterious ninth planet—may explain the dynamics of strange bodies called "detached objects," according to a new study. https://phys.org/news/2018-06-gravity-planet-orbits-detached.html Astronomy Mon, 04 Jun 2018 13:00:03 EDT news447328422 The combined power of three space observatories, including NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, has helped astronomers uncover a moon orbiting the third largest dwarf planet, catalogued as 2007 OR10. The pair resides in the frigid outskirts of our solar system called the Kuiper Belt, a realm of icy debris left over from our solar system's formation 4.6 billion years ago. https://phys.org/news/2017-05-hubble-moon-largest-dwarf-planet.html Astronomy Thu, 18 May 2017 13:00:01 EDT news414328079 Ever since enthusiasm started growing over the possibility that there could be a ninth major planet orbiting the sun beyond Neptune, astronomers have been busy hunting it. One group is investigating four new moving objects found by members of the public to see if they are potential new solar system discoveries. As exciting as this is, researchers are also making discoveries that question the entire prospect of a ninth planet. https://phys.org/news/2017-04-discovery-minor-planet-neptune.html Astronomy Wed, 19 Apr 2017 08:19:36 EDT news411808769 The dynamical properties of these asteroids, observed spectroscopiccally for the first time using the Gran Telescopio CANARIAS, suggest a possible common origin and give a clue to the existence of a planet beyond Pluto, the so-called 'Planet Nine.' https://phys.org/news/2017-02-distant-asteroids-clue-planet.html Astronomy Tue, 21 Feb 2017 12:40:59 EST news406903223 (Phys.org)—A team of space scientists at the University of Michigan has discovered a dwarf planet that is approximately half the size of Pluto and twice as far from the sun. The sighting was reported by NPR, which interviewed team lead physicist David Gerdes. He told them credit goes to a group of students who were challenged to find some new objects to add to the ongoing construction of a galaxy map. Their efforts led to software that can be used to analyze imagery from the Dark Energy Camera (the camera used as part of the ongoing Dark Energy Survey). It looks for objects that are moving in any given patch of sky—a sure sign that they are in our solar system. https://phys.org/news/2016-10-dwarf-planet-solar.html Space Exploration Wed, 12 Oct 2016 08:30:02 EDT news395478225 The search for distant solar system objects has found two more small worlds far outside the orbit of Neptune. The new objects are located beyond the Kuiper Belt, which is a belt of small icy objects just beyond Neptune, of which Pluto is a member. They have the third and fourth most-distant perihelia, which is when an object has its closest approach distance to the Sun, of any known solar system objects. https://phys.org/news/2016-07-newly-solar-resonate-neptune.html Astronomy Thu, 21 Jul 2016 08:42:55 EDT news388309364 In the race towards the discovery of a ninth planet in our solar system, scientists from around the world strive to calculate its orbit using the tracks left by the small bodies that move well beyond Neptune. Now, astronomers from Spain and Cambridge University have confirmed, with new calculations, that the orbits of the six extreme trans-Neptunian objects that served as a reference to announce the existence of Planet Nine are not as stable as it was thought. https://phys.org/news/2016-06-extreme-trans-neptunian-planet.html Space Exploration Mon, 13 Jun 2016 11:47:32 EDT news385037237 On January 20th, 2016, researchers Konstantin Batygin and Michael E. Brown of Caltech announced that they had found evidence that hinted at the existence of a massive planet at the edge of the Solar System. Based on mathematical modeling and computer simulations, they predicted that this planet would be a super-Earth, two to four times Earth's size and 10 times as massive. They also estimated that, given its distance and highly elliptical orbit, it would take 10,000 – 20,000 years to orbit the Sun. https://phys.org/news/2016-03-kuiper-belt-planet.html Space Exploration Mon, 14 Mar 2016 09:46:43 EDT news377167592 Recognise these planet names: Vulcan, Neptune, Pluto, Nemesis, Tyche and Planet X? They all have one thing in common: their existence was predicted to account for unexplained phenomena in our solar system. https://phys.org/news/2016-02-solar.html Space Exploration Thu, 04 Feb 2016 07:50:03 EST news373793476 There's a real buzz among planetary scientists after a new study suggested that an unseen planet, dubbed "Planet Nine", of about ten times the Earth's mass could be lurking in the Kuiper belt, a band of icy objects beyond Neptune. The latest theory was put forward after scientists noticed that six objects in the belt were behaving strangely, something that they said could be explained by the existence of a new planet. https://phys.org/news/2016-01-planets-wrongand-planet.html Space Exploration Mon, 25 Jan 2016 07:56:27 EST news372930679 Caltech 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 times that of Earth and orbits about 20 times farther from the sun on average than does Neptune (which orbits the sun at an average distance of 2.8 billion miles). In fact, it would take this new planet between 10,000 and 20,000 years to make just one full orbit around the sun. https://phys.org/news/2016-01-evidence-real-ninth-planet.html Astronomy Wed, 20 Jan 2016 12:11:23 EST news372514264 Over the course of the past decade, more and more objects have been discovered within the trans-Neptunian region. With every new find, we have learned more about the history of our solar system and the mysteries it holds. At the same time, these finds have forced astronomers to reexamine astronomical conventions that have been in place for decades. https://phys.org/news/2015-09-dwarf-planet-or10.html Space Exploration Thu, 03 Sep 2015 08:50:01 EDT news360487966 The vast Kuiper Belt, which orbits at the outer edge of our solar system, has been the site of many exciting discoveries in the past decade or so. Otherwise known as the Trans-Neptunian region, small bodies have been discovered here that have confounded our notions of what constitutes a planet and thrown our entire classification system for a loop. Of these, the most famous (and controversial) discovery was undoubtedly Eris. https://phys.org/news/2015-08-dwarf-planet-quaoar.html Space Exploration Fri, 28 Aug 2015 09:30:02 EDT news359972099 The term dwarf planet has been tossed around a lot in recent years. As part of a three-way categorization of bodies orbiting the sun, the term was adopted in 2006 due to the discovery of objects beyond the orbit of Neptune that were comparable in size to Pluto. Since then, it has come to be used to describe many objects in our solar system, upending the old classification system that claimed there were nine planets. https://phys.org/news/2015-08-dwarf-planet.html Space Exploration Tue, 18 Aug 2015 08:30:41 EDT news359105429 The Trans-Neptunian region has become a veritable treasure trove of discoveries in recent years. Since 2003, the dwarf planets and "plutoids" of Eris, Sedna, Makemake, Quaoar, and Orcus were all observed beyond the orbit of Pluto. And in between all of these, Haumea – that odd, oblong-shaped dwarf planet that has its own system of moons – was also discovered. https://phys.org/news/2015-08-dwarf-planet-haumea.html Space Exploration Fri, 14 Aug 2015 09:10:02 EDT news358758182