When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. An illustration of confirmed dwarf planets and their moons. From left to right: Pluto (with ...

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 ...

New observations reveal that the far-flung object 2014 UZ224 (informally known as DeeDee, for "Distant Dwarf") is about 395 miles (635 kilometers) wide — big enough to claim "dwarf planet" status.

Pluto hasn't been a planet for almost 20 years. In the early 2000s, scientists discovered several objects of a similar size to Pluto. So, during the summer of 2006, members of the International ...

For decades, our solar system was thought to have nine planets, with Pluto considered the smallest and farthest. But in 2006, Pluto was officially reclassified as a dwarf planet by the International ...

Do aliens sleep? You may take sleep for granted, but research suggests many planets that could evolve life don’t have a day and night cycle. It’s hard to imagine, but there are organisms living in ...

A Southwest Research Institute-led team has discovered an elusive, dark moon orbiting Makemake, one of the “big four” dwarf planets populating the Kuiper Belt region at the edge of our solar system.

Earth has a newly-discovered neighbor in the solar system. But the heavenly body – possibly a dwarf planet à la Pluto – isn't a frequent visitor. Located beyond Neptune, its extreme orbit ...

More than 50 times further from the Sun than Earth, the tiny dwarf planet Makemake is one of the last places you'd expect to find an intact gaseous atmosphere. Not only is it incredibly cold, being ...

A color-enhanced view of Ceres, the nearest dwarf planet to Earth, high­lights its Oc­ca­tor crater. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA Pluto is the most famous dwarf planet, due in ...