Active small bodies—including comets, active asteroids, icy minor planets, and transitional objects—occupy a unique position in planetary science. As ...

New research by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and the National Science Foundation's National Center for Atmospheric ...

Out in the Kuiper Belt, the massive doughnut of debris beyond Neptune, about one in 10 kilometer-scale objects have surprised ...

Every once in a while, the outer solar system reminds us that we've only discovered a negligible portion of it, and that the vast majority is still full of surprises. The latest example of this is a ...

HELSINKI — China has published coordinated papers outlining dual missions to the solar system’s edge, suggesting the long-studied project is nearing formal approval. A lead paper on the design and key ...

Earth may owe some of its properties to a nearby star that blew up just as the solar system was forming. This pattern, which saw a supernova bubble envelop the sun and shower it with cosmic rays, may ...

Earth has the perfect combination of a livable atmosphere and a protective magnetic field that prevents the Sun's harmful radiation and radioactive solar winds from damaging us, allowing us to live on ...

Nothing manmade has reached further from Earth than the Voyager series of spacecraft. Hurtling away from the sun at 38,000 miles an hour, the duo have now traveled over 12 billion miles, with Voyager ...

Astronomers have spotted an intriguing cluster of objects in the Kuiper belt, the enormous, donut-shaped region of icy objects beyond the orbit of Neptune. This latest “inner kernel” was identified by ...

Illustration comparing the planets of the Solar System and the Sun on the same scale. The planets are shown to scale relative to each other but their distances are not. From left to right the bodies ...

Material around Chiron, a small icy world in the far reaches of the solar system, may be taking shape into a ring system of its own. The rare event is unfolding in real time, giving astronomers a ...

The search for an unknown planet in our solar system has inspired astronomers for more than a century. Now, a recent study suggests a potential new candidate, which the paper’s authors have dubbed ...