The post Astronomers Surprised To Find A New Moon Or Ring Around A Dwarf Planet In The Kuiper Belt first on TwistedSifter.

"It shows that Makemake is not an inactive remnant of the outer solar system, but a dynamic body where methane ice is still ...

The methane gas may constitute a rarefied atmosphere, or it may come from erupting plumes on Makemake’s surface.

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 ...

A new study has proposed the existence of Planet Y, an alternative Planet Nine candidate that is smaller and closer to Earth ...

New observations suggest that the dwarf planet Makemake is surrounded by faintly glowing methane gas. Scientists are unsure if the gas is contained within a wispy atmosphere or being ejected into ...

Planets that orbit white dwarf stars should be too hot to host alien life, theories suggest. But a new study accounting for ...

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 ...

Dwarf planet Ceres now appears less like a dead rock and more like a world that may have briefly brimmed with potential for life Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter ...

In the hunt for extraterrestrial life, we usually look for planets orbiting sun-like stars and icy moons. But there is ...

Exciting space news! Astronomers have found evidence that Ceres, a dwarf planet (a.k.a. large asteroid) in between Mars and Jupiter, has water vapor plumes. The discovery, not unlike that of Jupiter's ...