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 ...
Identifying asteroids on a potential collision course with Earth could be made easier thanks to an advancement in how to track their orbits more precisely.
Ever since William Herschel discovered Uranus in 1781, astronomers have been eager to find new planets on the outer edge of the solar system. But after the discovery of Neptune in 1846, we've found no other large planets. ...
Pluto may have been downgraded from full-planet status, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hold a special place in scientist's hearts. There are practical and sentimental reasons for that—Pluto has tantalizing mysteries to ...
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 ...
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and New Horizons spacecraft simultaneously set their sights on Uranus recently, allowing scientists to make a direct comparison of the planet from two very different viewpoints. The results inform ...
Inspired by the half-human, half-horse creatures that are part of Ancient Greek mythology, the field of astronomy has its own kind of centaurs: distant objects orbiting the sun between Jupiter and Neptune. NASA's James Webb ...
NASA's Webb Space Telescope has identified new clues about the surface of Pluto's largest moon.
Over six missions to the moon, from 1969 to 1972, Apollo astronauts collected more than 800 pounds of lunar rock and soil. Chemical and isotopic analysis of that material showed that it was similar to the rock and soil on ...
Mission concepts to the outer solar system are relatively common, as planetary scientists are increasingly frustrated by our lack of knowledge of the farthest planets. Neptune, the farthest known planet, was last visited ...
