Because the Kuiper Belt had seemed small, one theory had been that the solar nebula that formed our planetary system had also been smaller than normal. The discovery of this Kuiper Belt 2 suggests ...

This artist’s concept of Comet 238P/Read shows the main belt comet sublimating—its water ice vaporizing as its orbit approaches the Sun Photo: NASA, ESA ...

China extends its reach into the Solar System with launch of asteroid mission Tianwen-2 will first return samples from an asteroid, then explore a mysterious comet-like object.

There are five known dwarf planets in our solar system. One of them is named Ceres, after the Roman goddess of corn, agriculture, and harvests. Ceres is the closest dwarf planet to the sun. It has ...

Indeed, our own solar system's asteroid belt is considered to be a "failed planet" of sorts; there are multiple small spherical bodies that make up the asteroid belt, including Ceres, Vesta, and ...

The first asteroid belt ever seen outside the solar system is more complex than expected, astronomers found, using observations by the James Webb Space Telescope. Looking at the warm dust around a ...

Recently, researchers at Kyoto University made a groundbreaking discovery in samples from asteroid Ryugu, a 900-meter diameter asteroid in the Apollo belt.

As an ancient planetesimal in the Kuiper Belt, Arrokoth likely formed 4 to 4.5 billion years ago from a sea of icy particles in the far reaches of the solar system.

Later this year, NASA is set to launch a probe the size of a tennis court to the asteroid belt, a region between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter where remnants of the early solar system circle the ...

At a NASA observatory in Hawaii, scientists have detected a new type of water-rich ancient asteroid similar to the dwarf planet Ceres in the main belt. The discovery adds to the mounting evidence ...

Tiny grains from asteroid Ryugu are revealing clues to the magnetic forces that shaped the far reaches of the solar system over 4.6 billion years ago. The findings suggest the distal solar system ...