Pluto
Pluto and Other Kuiper Belt Objects Started Out With Water Oceans, and Have Been Slowly Freezing Solid for Billions of Years
It seems unlikely that an ocean could persist on a world that never gets closer than 30 astronomical units from…
New Horizons is so Far From Earth That the Positions of the Stars Look a Little Different From its Perspective
From its current position in the Kuiper Belt, the New Horizons spacecraft recently conducted a parallax experiment that is not…
Astronomers Continue to Analyze Pluto’s Atmosphere
When NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto, studying the atmosphere was a key scientific objective. Most of what we…
NASA is Now Considering a Pluto Orbiter Mission
NASA's New Horizons mission taught us a lot about Pluto, the ice dwarf planet. But the spacecraft sped past Pluto…
New Horizons Team Pieces Together the Best Images They Have of Pluto’s Far Side
Pluto was discovered in 1930 by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh. For decades, not much detail was known about the erstwhile planet.…
A Bunch of New Names for Pluto’s Surface Features Were Just Approved
Pluto is getting some new names. In the past, prior to the New Horizons mission, there wasn't much to name.…
An Insulating Layer of Gas Could Keep a Liquid Ocean Inside Pluto
A new study led by Japanese researchers indicates that Pluto could have a subsurface ocean, provided there is an "insulating…
Pluto and Charon Don’t Have Enough Small Craters
The New Horizons team just shared new findings about the lack of small craters on Pluto and Charon's surface, which…
New Horizons took this shot of MU69 as it sped away from its encounter
The latest images to come from the New Horizons mission show that Ultima Thule (the first KBO to be studied…
New Dwarf Planet Found in the Outskirts of the Solar System, Giving Astronomers More Ammunition to Search for Evidence of Planet 9
Astronomers have found a new dwarf planet way out beyond Pluto that never gets closer than 65 AUs to the…