Tagged: Pluto

To Pluto and beyond! Nearly two years after its historic encounter with the dwarf planet Pluto, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is getting ready for its next big adventure in the icy outskirts of the solar system. Now, the spacecraft is on its way to a...

Before 1930, Pluto was a mathematical prediction. Astronomers had spent 149 years watching Uranus’s wonky orbit and estimating what must be out there in the far reaches of our solar system, majestically mucking things up. Neptune was identified as a planet in 1846, but even...

This artist’s rendering shows how Pluto, on the right, might look from a position high above its equator. To the left and beyond Pluto is Charon, its satellite moon. The bright star between Pluto and Charon is Polaris, the north star, which hangs directly over...

Scientists have discovered dunes on Pluto, which are believed to have been formed of methane ice grains released into its rarefied atmosphere. An international team of geographers, physicists and planetary scientists have analyzed detailed images of the dwarf planet’s surface, captured in July 2015 by...

Based on data from NASA’s New Horizons discoveries and ESA’s Rosetta mission, researchers at Southwest Research Institute propose a new theory about how Pluto may have formed at the edge of our solar system. The research is focused on the nitrogen-rich ice in Sputnik Planitia,...

Pluto isn’t quite as lonely as scientists had thought. Astronomers have discovered another dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt, the ring of icy objects beyond Neptune. But this newfound world, dubbed 2015 RR245, is much more distant than Pluto, orbiting the sun once every 700...

– Pluto’s outermost small moon – Hydra – has the surface covered with nearly pristine water ice, according to the new data, which confirms hints that scientists picked up in New Horizons images showing Hydra’s highly reflective surface. This finding was made thanks to the...

Strange gigantic knife-like blades of ice detected on Pluto are among discoveries made by NASA’s New Horizons mission, during its flyby in July 2015. The coldest and the smallest planet in our solar system, Pluto is also a mysterious place. Now, scientists have turned up...

Scientists have discovered dunes on Pluto, which are believed to have been formed of methane ice grains released into its rarefied atmosphere. An international team of geographers, physicists and planetary scientists have analyzed detailed images of the dwarf planet’s surface, captured in July 2015 by...

Then, in 2006, a group of experts from the International Astronomical Union established a definition of a planet and according this new classification, Pluto lost its planet status. Since Neptune’s gravity influences its neighboring planet Pluto, and Pluto shares its orbit with frozen gases and...