Our solar system is much like a trail of microcosmic breadcrumbs: Follow the molecular bits as far back as they go, and you'll learn a thing or two about where many of our planets and other celestial ...

How many dwarf planets are there in our solar system? The recent discovery of 2017 OF201 makes the tally anywhere between five and 18, plus hundreds of potentially undiscovered ones, depending on whom ...

A surprising chemical difference between Pluto and Sedna, another dwarf planet in the distant Kuiper Belt, is helping scientists nail down their respective masses, a new study reports. "Kuiper Belt ...

How does a star affect the makeup of its planets? And what does this mean for the habitability of distant worlds? Carnegie's ...

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A composite image comparing the relative sizes of our solar system's known dwarf planets, ...

In the hunt for extraterrestrial life, we usually look for planets orbiting sun-like stars and icy moons. But there is another possible candidate—planets circling white dwarfs, the hot, dense remnants ...

Ammonite was discovered using the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii, with follow-up confirmation from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. Its orbit and size officially qualify it as a distant dwarf planet.

While both planets would likely be locked into a synchronous orbit—with a permanent dayside and a perpetual nightside—the ultrafast white dwarf planet's rotation stretches out the cloud circulation ...

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope detected material from a Pluto-like body spiraling into a white dwarf star 260 light-years away from Earth. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Tim Pyle illustration For the ...

A planet circling at a sharp 90-degree angle to the orbits of its two host stars has now been confirmed. This discovery challenges long-standing ideas about how planets form and orbit in the cosmos.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have observed a white dwarf - a highly compact stellar ember - that appears to have gobbled up an icy world akin to the dwarf planet ...