Data from NASA’s New Horizons mission are providing new insights into how planets and planetesimals — the building blocks of the planets — were formed.
It’s red, it’s cold, it’s 4bn years old: Nasa data from Arrokoth reveals ‘profound truths’ about the solar system
We have much to learn from the rocks of the asteroid belt.
Collisions between bodies in our Solar System produce impact craters on large objects at a rate that depends on the population of impacting small bodies. By mapping the scars of ancient impacts on the surfaces of Pluto and its moon Charon, planetary researchers have discovered a surprising lack of very small objects (from 300 feet to 1 mile, or 91 m to 1.6 km, in diameter) in the Kuiper Belt.
For the first time ever, astronomers have detected a 1.3 km radius body at the edge of the Solar System. Kilometer sized bodies like the one discovered have been predicted to exist for more than 70 years. These objects acted as an important step in the planet formation process between small initial amalgamations of dust and ice and the planets we see today.
On 1 January 2019 the New Horizons probe will begin transmitting data from Ultima Thule, 4bn miles from Earth in the Kuiper belt. What will it find?
Massively elongated orbit suggests object is influenced by theoretical giant Planet Nine in Oort Cloud region
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has made its first detection of its next target, the Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69, more than four months ahead of its 2019 close encounter.
ESO telescopes find first confirmed carbon-rich asteroid in Kuiper Belt
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft recently turned its telescopic camera toward a field of stars, snapped an image – and made history.
