Kuiper Belt

The Kuiper Belt is Much Bigger Than We Thought

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is just over 8.8 billion km away, exploring the Kuiper Belt. This icy belt surrounds the…

2 months ago

How Many Planets Could Be in the Kuiper Belt?

A recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters investigates the potential existence of Mars-sized free-floating planets (FFPs)—also known as…

4 months ago

Arrokoth is Covered in Bizarre Mounds

When New Horizons flew past Arrokoth in 2019, it revealed close-up images of this enigmatic Kuiper Belt Object for the…

7 months ago

A 6-Year Search of the Outer Solar System Turns up 461 new Objects (but no Planet 9)

After six years of observing the cosmos, the Dark Energy Survey has announced that it is also responsible for discovering…

3 years ago

New Horizons is Now 50 Astronomical Units Away From the Sun

As the New Horizons spacecraft hurtles out towards interstellar space, it has now reached an historical milestone. On April 17,…

3 years ago

Astronomers Find a New Binary Object in the Kuiper Belt

Scientists from the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) have presented the discovery of a binary pair of objects way out in…

4 years ago

If Planet 9 is a Primordial Black Hole, We Might Be Able to See Flares When it Consumes Comets

A comet-eating black hole the size of a planet? It's possible. And if there's one out there in the distant…

4 years ago

Maybe the Elusive Planet 9 Doesn’t Exist After All

Oh Planet Nine, when will you stop toying with us? Whether you call it Planet Nine, Planet X, the Perturber,…

4 years ago

Over a Hundred New Large Objects Found in the Kuiper Belt

Hey Pluto, Sedna, Haumea, Makemake Et al.: You’ve got company! While searching for distant galaxies and supernovae, the Dark Energy…

4 years ago

New Horizon’s Flyby Target 2014 MU69 Gets its Official Name: Arrokoth

The KBO formerly known as Ultima Thule (2014 MU69) has officially been named "Arrokoth", the traditional Powhatan-Algonquin language.

4 years ago