In 2006, and after much debate, the International Astronomical Union came up with a new definition for a planet. And for the first time, the term "dwarf planet" was used.
Today, astronomers are debating how to define an exoplanet, which is a planet orbiting a star that is not the Sun. Since 1992, thousands of exoplanets have been discovered. Some of these are so big that astronomers are unsure whether they are planets or brown dwarves. A brown dwarf is a...
a Dwarf Planet (Eris) or an Extrasolar planet. An extrasolar planet is a planet that orbits a star other than our Sun. Again, an extrasolar planet can be either Rocky, Gas or Dwarf. We have been discovering planets orbiting other stars. Still, most of those were gas giants whose life...
thesolar system's largest planet, can send them hurtling through in random directions, including through the inner solar system and thus towardsEarth. But don't worry,NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Officeis keeping a watchful eye on near-Earth objects (NEOs), ...
Given the mass of Earth to be 5.97 x 10^24 kg, the mass of Sun to be 3.955 x 10^30 kg and the gravitational constant, what is the potential energy of planet Earth at both aphelion and perihelion? A 0.145 kg ball leaves the earth with an upward velocity of 15.0 m/s. ...
The Kuiper belt is a disc of objects made of ice and rock that orbit our sun just past the orbit of Neptune. There are many objects in the belt believed to be short-period comets. However, there are at least three dwarf planets with more likely to be discovered....
The Andromeda Galaxy is not expected to hit the Milky Way for at least 3 billion years. In 3 billion years, the human race, unless it has got off this planet, will no longer exist because the Sun would have made the planet inhabitable. This YouTube video that NASA shared explains more...
Our solar system is located in the Orion arm of the Milky Way galaxy. It has eight planets, each of which orbit the sun at the center of the solar system. Pluto was once thought of as the ninth planet. However, discoveries lead to a change in the definit
It allows scientists to detect distinct characters of water in a planet's atmosphere. This team plans to expand this research even further by studying K2-18b with NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, which is set to launch in 2021. This type of research, Benneke said, is leading toward a ...
when it was "downgraded" to dwarf-planet status. What this reveals more than anything else is not that scientists are in the habit of waffling, but that astronomy is a rich and dynamic field in which a number of major new discoveries are made every year, especially with humankind having pu...