Pluto was demoted from planet status to dwarf planet in 2006. But a new study suggests it should be resurrected as a planet, since the definition the object failed to meet was not based on precedents set in scientific literature.
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Asteroids are the leftovers from the formation of the solar system, and they can tell us a lot about those early years. Now scientists have studied a weird space rock and found that it’s the oldest known igneous meteorite, dating back to one of the very first volcanic eruptions in the solar system.
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A team of scientists from Cornell University has created a reference catalog detailing the “light-fingerprints” of worlds orbiting our Sun, in the hope that it will help future telescopes to uncover the true natures of distant exoplanets.
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The Sun was far more active in its early years, but we only really know this from studying other similar stars. Now, researchers have found the fingerprints of this active young Sun in tiny, bright blue crystals preserved in meteorites from a collection at Chicago’s Field Museum.
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Saturn’s moon Titan is one of the most interesting bodies in the solar system – but at a glance it looks like a dull yellow ball, thanks to a soupy atmosphere. Now, using 13 years’ worth of infrared data from Cassini, astronomers have stitched together the clearest images yet of Titan’s surface.
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With dozens of moons whizzing around Jupiter, it makes sense that a few have slipped under the radar, but the latest discovery is still a surprisingly large haul. Astronomers have announced the detection of 12 new moons orbiting Jupiter, including one particularly reckless “oddball.”
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They might seem like boring rocks, but asteroids and meteorites have fascinating stories to tell about the history of the solar system. New research from the University of Florida has now traced back the origins of almost all asteroids in the inner belt to just five or six ancient minor planets.
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Evidence is growing for a ninth planet lurking on the edges of the Solar System. Objects out there move in ways that suggest an unseen world is pulling on them, but new calculations suggest that there is no Planet Nine – these distant objects might just be jostling each other like bumper cars.
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When the solar winds emanating from our Sun meet interstellar space, they collide with material from beyond and limit the amount of harmful particles that come back the other way. NASA has ticked off a new mission to probe this protective bubble known as the heliosphere.
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An international team of astronomers has discovered an asteroid sharing Jupiter's orbit, that appears to have originated from another solar system. The imaginatively named asteroid 2015 BZ509 could have immigrated to our system at a time when our Sun was still embedded in a colossal star cluster.
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