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 ...
What processes during the formation of Pluto's largest moon, Charon, potentially led to it having cryovolcanism, and even an internal ocean? This is what a recent study presented at the 56th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference ...
For centuries, astronomers have sought to understand the formation and evolution of the solar system and the dynamics that govern it. In particular, there is the long-standing question of whether or not the planets' orbits ...
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 ...
