Pluto began hot inside, study of its surface fractures suggests
The spectacular layers of blue haze in Pluto’s atmosphere, captured by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft.
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
There’s a mysterious lack of small bodies beyond Neptune, but a ‘snowman-shaped’ object may help explain why.
Pluto’s ghoulish cousin, 2015 TG387, lurks in the distant reaches of our own Solar System.
Illustration by Roberto Molar Candanosa and Scott Sheppard, courtesy of Carnegie Institution for Science.
Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland and Jake Clark, University of Southern Queensland
Whether you call it Planet X or Planet Nine, talk of another planet lurking in our Solar system won’t go away. So what does the discovery of a new object – nicknamed “The Goblin” – add to the debate?
Pluto in enhanced color, to illustrate differences in the composition and texture of its surface.
NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute
A group of astronomers are trying to reclassify Pluto as full ‘planet’. But there are good reasons to leave our classification system alone, and this doesn’t mean Pluto is any less interesting.
Ceres’ Haulani Crater shows evidence of landslides from its crater rim.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
Dawn’s mission director and chief engineer describes his ‘dream come true’ job – and how the new data coming back from Ceres could unlock some of the secrets of the earliest days of our solar system.
Ceres: a bright spot in planetary exploration.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
New Horizons mission members have worked on the project for even longer than it’s taken the spacecraft to get to Pluto. They’ve planned, built and researched – and now their efforts are paying off.
What is the bright spot of Ceres? Not long till we find out.
NASA
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft hasn’t reached optimum orbit around Ceres but the data it’s returning has already got scientists excited.
Two views of Ceres acquired by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft ten hours apart on Feb. 12, 2015, from a distance of about 52,000 miles as the dwarf planet rotated.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
While the Mars Rovers and the Rosetta spacecraft will continue to make headlines in 2015, the stage is set for the solar system’s next great mission – the Pluto-bound New Horizons. Discovered in 1930…