PASADENA, Calif.–The International Astronomical Union (IAU) today downgraded the status of Pluto to that of a “dwarf planet,” a designation that will also be applied to the spherical body discovered ...

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The discovery of dwarf planet 2017 OF201 hints at a 'population behind it with hundreds of ...

David Rothery is co-leader of the European Space Agency's Mercury Surface and Composition Working Group, and a Co-Investigator on MIXS (Mercury Imaging X-ray Spectrometer) that is now on its way to ...

A pattern in the movements of a brown dwarf that orbits a Sun-like star is likely to be caused by a moon. If confirmed, this would be the first exomoon, that is a moon orbiting a planet that in turn ...

The research was conducted by Rafael Ribeiro de Sousa, a professor in the program of graduate studies in physics on the Guaratinguetá campus. The co-authors of the article are Ernesto Vieira Neto, who ...

The Sun is orbited by eight planets, at least five dwarf planets, tens of thousands of asteroids, and around three trillion comets and icy bodies. Although not all objects of the solar system are as ...

Astronomers have discovered a rare in-sync solar system with six planets moving like a grand cosmic orchestra, untouched by outside forces since their birth billions of years ago. The find, announced ...

Are planets in the solar system that are closer to the Sun older than the ones further away? – Gavriel, age 10, Paducah, Kentucky A cloud of collapsing gas created our Sun, the first thing to form in ...

The dwarf planet Vesta is helping scientists better understand the earliest era in the formation of our solar system. Two recent papers involving scientists from the University of California, Davis, ...

A new color movie combines more than 100 images taken by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft during the probe's historic Pluto flyby in the summer of 2015. The dwarf planet Ceres still holds pockets of ice ...

A radio signal has been detected, pointing to the possible existence of a magnetic field on YZ Ceti b, an exoplanet 12 ...

Hubble Space Telescope observations of white dwarf star G238-44 has shown that it is "consuming both rocky-metallic and icy ...