Some call Cruithne a “second moon” but even at its brightest it’s fainter than Pluto. By 2014 six more earth co-orbitals had been added to the list as well as a leading (L4) Trojan. At least one of those co-orbitals, 54509 YORP, spins about its axis at an accelerating speed. ...
Did you know that Neptune is named after theRomangod of the sea and is about 2,819,185,846 miles (4,537,039,826 kilometers) from thesun, making it the eighth and the most distant planet from the sun? Wow, that’s far! Pluto used to be the most distant but it is no longer tho...
s orbit and nearly the plane of the solar system in general—is less than 1°. Low orbital eccentricity and inclination are characteristic of the planets of the solar system, with the notable exceptions ofMercuryandPluto. Scientists believe thatcollisionsand gaseousdragremoved energy from the ...
Pluto, large, distant member of the solar system that formerly was regarded as the outermost and smallest planet. In 2006 a group of experts in the scientific community voted to give Pluto the new classification of dwarf planet. Learn more about Pluto in
Cassinispacecraft on its way toSaturnand in 2007 by the flyby of theNew Horizonsspacecraft on its way toPluto. Observations of the impacts of the fragmented nucleus ofComet Shoemaker-Levy 9with Jupiter’s atmosphere in 1994 also yielded information about itscompositionand structure....
CharonPluto's moon Charon, in a photo taken by the New Horizons spacecraft, July 13, 2015. All of the planets apart from the two closest to the Sun (Mercury and Venus) have natural satellites (moons) that are verydiversein appearance, size, and structure, as revealed in close-up observ...
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Space exploration, investigation, by means of crewed and uncrewed spacecraft, of the reaches of the universe beyond Earth’s atmosphere and the use of the information so gained to increase knowledge of the cosmos and benefit humanity. Learn more about sp
Four planets—Jupiter through Neptune—have ring systems, and all but Mercury and Venus have one or more moons. Pluto had been officially listed among the planets since it was discovered in 1930 orbiting beyond Neptune, but in 1992 an icy object was discovered still farther from the Sun than...
Neptune, third most massive planet in the solar system and the eighth and outermost planet from the Sun. Neptune has 14 moons, only two of which were discovered before Voyager 2’s visit in 1989, and a system of rings, which were unconfirmed before Voyag