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 ...

Scientists have detected methane gas glowing faintly above Makemake, an icy dwarf planet smaller and farther than Pluto in space. Until now, Pluto was the only object that far out in the solar system ...

About 650 light-years from here, in the constellation Aquarius, lies the planetary nebula Caldwell 63, commonly known as the Helix Nebula. It’s the slowly cooling corpse of a dead star, a vast cloud ...

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 ...

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 ...

Pluto, the most famous dwarf planet, lost its planet status in 2006. Learn more about dwarf planets of the solar system here. NASA's Dawn spacecraft has been granted a mission extension that will ...

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 ...

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.