Hubble discovers a unique type of object in the Solar System | ESA/Hubble

Two asteroids orbiting each other and exhibiting comet-like features, including a bright coma and a long tail. This is the first known binary asteroid also classified as a comet...

Newly discovered dwarf planet is solar system's most distant object

Astronomers have found a dwarf planet three times farther away from the Sun than Pluto, making it the most distant known object in the solar system...

Why Pluto Is a Planet, and Eris Is Too

What the IAU should have done in 2006, and could easily do moving forward, is to crystallize the definition of the word "planet" as unambiguously as it defined the boundaries of the constellations in..

NASA Sees 'Bright Spots' On Dwarf Planet In Our Solar System

Scientists are puzzled by a new image taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft, which found two bright spots on the dwarf planet Ceres. The spots are noticeably brighter than other parts of the surface, which..

Centaurs: Cross-Dressing Comets That Go As Asteroids

New research announced today describes the finding that many of the mysterious objects that populate orbits between Jupiter and Neptune are in fact comets. Cross-dressing comets! Live and let live is..

Ukrainians Astronomers Name a Star for Putin -- And It's NSFW

A group of Ukrainian astronomers took out their frustration with the imperial actions of Russia's president by naming a star after him. And so it is that with only a small fee and a little impish inge..

Saturn's Polar Vortex Stuns in New Photo

A weird hexagon-shaped vortex that's been swirling above Saturn's north pole for at least 30 years. The vortex over Saturn spans about 20,000 miles (30,000 km) across, with air currents racing 200 mph..

Will Pluto be reinstated as a planet?

Harvard-Smithsonian Center held a debate..

Three Supermoons in a Row - NASA Science

The scientific term for the phenomenon is "perigee moon." Full Moons vary in size because of the oval shape of the Moon's orbit. The Moon follows an elliptical path around Earth with one side ("perige..

Possible New Moon Forming Around Saturn

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has documented the formation of a small icy object within the rings of Saturn. Informally named "Peggy," the object may be a new moon. Details of the observations were publis..

New dwarf planet hints at giant world far beyond Pluto

A newly discovered dwarf planet has grabbed the crown as the most distant known object in our solar system – and its orbit hints at a giant, unseen rocky world, 10 times the mass of Earth and o..

Asteroid Found with Rings! First-of-Its-Kind Discovery Stuns Astronomers (Video, Images)

Scientists have made a stunning discovery in the outer realm of the solar system — an asteroid with its own set of rings that orbits the sun between Saturn and Uranus. The space rock is the fir..