Why did the asteroid belt form where it did? Why aren't there comets in the asteroid belt? Why is the asteroid belt important? Why did a large planet not form in the asteroid belt? Why did there used to be more objects in the asteroid belt? Why is the asteroid belt called the aster...
But, as explained above, it lost its planet status in 2006 (some researchers still argue against that decision). Today, Pluto is reclassified as a dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt, a donut-shaped region of icy bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. There may be millions of these icy objects...
It is certainly not by accident that we begin to see the tremendous tasks waiting for us at a time when the young space age has provided us the first good look at our own planet. If we cannot find a new home, it is possible that we human could collapse just like what happened to t...
It also has approximately 25% more mass than Pluto. With Eris being larger, made of the same ice/rock mixture, and more massive than Pluto, the concept that we have nine planets in the Solar System began to fall apart. What is Eris, planet or Kuiper Belt Object; what is Pluto, for ...
You're probably familiar with the concept of comets, but what you might not know is what makes a comet different from an asteroid. It's not just that comets have a tail that makes them different from an asteroid; it's their composition. While both asteroids and comets have roc...
Badly. Zurple wants them to “make it through,” whatever that means. We’ll come back to that. One thing they’re probably paying attention to is the pattern of extinction events throughout the history of life on 143-Snoogie. Let’s take a look. The Scary Thing About the Universe ...
There are hundreds of dwarf planets. A couple of the more well-known dwarf planets are Ceres and Eris. Some folks ask if Pluto is an asteroid. Actually, it’s called a “plutoid” or an “ice dwarf” because it has an orbit outside Neptune’s (plus, it’s extremely cold). ...
It also has approximately 25% more mass than Pluto. With Eris being larger, made of the same ice/rock mixture, and more massive than Pluto, the concept that we have nine planets in the Solar System began to fall apart. What is Eris, planet or Kuiper Belt Object; what is Pluto, for ...
of the day. But that began to change as further measurements showed it was smaller than other planets ever seen at the time. Eventually, Ceres was lumped into a group of rocky bodies, called "asteroids", of which we now know ofhundreds of thousandsof these in the asteroid belt alone. ...
John Wenz is a Popular Mechanics writer and space obsessive based in Philadelphia. He tweets @johnwenz. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below New Horizons: The Journey to Pluto NASA Wants You To Name a Kuiper Belt Object New Horizons Just Woke Up ...