You Searched For "Kuiper belt" and got 20 results
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4 mins read
Thousands of worlds may lurk beyond Pluto - and a stunning new animation shows them all
Pluto, Eris, Ceres, Makemake, Haumea, and five others meet Brown's "near certainty" criteria - in o…
Dave Mosher
4 mins read
Astronomers just discovered a 9th planet in our solar system for the first time in nearly 170 years
"You can think of them like different hands on the clock," Mike Brown, an astronomer at the Califor…
Jessica Orwig
4 mins read
All stars in the universe may form in pairs - but we can't find the sun's missing 'Nemesis'
When he introduced his Nemesis idea, Muller posited that the twin star might periodically intersect…
David Levine
2 mins read
Scientists want to visit a mysterious object beyond Pluto that's a celestial time capsule
PT1 is one of three potential targets NASA liked. It's nearly a billion miles beyond Pluto and is o…
Kelly Dickerson
2 mins read
840 new planets have been discovered beyond Neptune and its the single largest finding till date
We all know that the universe is vast, but we don’t know exactly how vast it is. But humans don’t b…
6 mins read
NASA just released the first close-up photos of the farthest object humanity has ever explored - and it looks like a giant red snowman
New Horizons achieved the first-ever visit to Pluto in 2015. Once the probe finished that main miss…
Dave Mosher
4 mins read
The Pluto flyby is just the start of NASA's epic New Horizons mission
But the flyby wasn't just about taking breathtaking close-ups. Scientific instruments also recorded…
Julia Calderone
2 mins read
NASA is about to announce the finalists of its next $1 billion space mission
Previous missions selected by New Frontiers include New Horizons, a nuclear-powered probe that flew…
Dave Mosher
2 mins read
We've finally added Pluto to the family portrait of the Solar System
We barely had an idea of what Pluto looked like until New Horizons began closing in …
Kelly Dickerson,Skye Gould
4 mins read
Here's why some scientists think Pluto should still be a planet
Narrator: And while these new worlds looked and behaved like Pluto, they were completely different …
Gina Echevarria,Shira Polan
4 mins read
NASA just received the critical message that proves its spacecraft reached Pluto after 9 1/2 years
Pluto is the largest object in the Kuiper belt, which is a thick band that wraps around the outer e…
Jessica Orwig
4 mins read
The way we might protect ourselves from an exploding star could help us find alien civilizations
Ice is plentiful in space. The Kuiper Belt, on the outer edges of our solar system, is full of it. …
Kevin Loria
4 mins read
Despite a government shutdown, NASA is broadcasting humanity's farthest-ever visit to an object in space. Here's how to watch coverage of the Ultima Thule flyby.
Called Ultima Thule (pronounced "tool-ee"), or 2014 MU69, the object is a total mystery to scientis…
Dave Mosher
2 mins read
Something is moving beneath Pluto's icy skin - and it might be liquid water
When New Horizons flung itself past Pluto in 2015, it returned a stream of stunning images. One of …
Rafi Letzter
4 mins read
This is the best image we've ever seen of Pluto's largest moon - and it has stunned scientists
Charon is the same size as other objects in the Kuiper Belt, and scientists always thought these ob…
Kelly Dickerson,Dave Mosher
4 mins read
Queen guitarist Brian May released a new song celebrating NASA's historic visit to the farthest object ever explored - take a listen
NASA's New Horizons probe, which launched toward Pluto in 2006, successfully flew past MU69 on…
Peter Kotecki,Peter Kotecki
3 mins read
An intrepid group of astronomers is the only reason NASA is about to visit the last unexplored world in our solar system
Stern and the others continued arguing the importance of a mission to Pluto. Finally, in the 2003 P…
Kelly Dickerson
2 mins read
There's an incredible piece of gaming history at the heart of NASA's Pluto spacecraft
The chip is known as the "MIPS R3000," and it's still used today in stuff like server stacks and wo…
Ben Gilbert
2 mins read
Evidence of ninth planet in solar system found, nicknamed 'Planet Nine
Our solar system may host a ninth planet that is 10 times the mass of the Earth and takes up to 20,…
2 mins read
Pluto has blue skies and frozen water on its surface
"That striking blue tint tells us about the size and composition of the haze particles," New Horizo…