Category Archives: Solar system

Scientists believe that a ninth planet almost certainly exists deep within our solar system. A celestial body currently dubbed “Planet Nine” is believed to lie beyond the Kuiper Belt – a layer of asteroid-like ice rock that begins near Neptune’s orbit and continues outward beyond. beyond the orbit of the dwarf planet Pluto, and into […]

This is why the discovery of the fastest orbiting asteroid in our solar system could be worrying for some. As with all other asteroids, it will eventually hit something and be smashed to pieces in the future. Fortunately, that something probably won’t be Earth. But I’m getting ahead of myself. So, in August, we got […]

Since its discovery in 1930, Pluto has been a bit of a puzzle. For starters, not only is Pluto smaller than any other planet in the solar system, it’s also smaller than Earth’s moon. It also has extremely weak gravitational pull at just 0.07 times the mass of objects in its orbit, which is only […]

Scientists have identified unusual solar system objects with both asteroid and comet characteristics. This object, called QN173 2005, is in orbit like any other object. asteroidHowever, most of these objects are rocks that don’t change much as they travel through the solar system. According to a new study, the 2005 QN173 (hence its name), first […]

“This fits the physical definitions of a comet, in that it is probably icy and throws dust into space, even though it also has the orbit of an asteroid,” Henry Hsieh, lead author of the new research and planetologist at the Planetary Science Institute said in a statement. “This duality and blurring of the line […]

The dwarf planet Vesta is helping scientists better understand the first era in the formation of our solar system. Two recent papers involving scientists at the University of California, Davis, use Vesta-derived meteorite data to solve the “missing mantle problem” and push back our knowledge of the solar system to just a few million years […]

Scientists have identified a rare solar system object with features of both an asteroid and a comet. The object, dubbed 2005 QN173, orbit like any other asteroid, but most of these objects are rocks that don’t change much as they travel through the solar system. This is not the case for 2005 QN173, which was […]

Our solar system will host another comet as scientists have identified another massive space rock rushing toward the sun. Researchers studying the comet have estimated its potential arrival in 2031, or in ten years. Discovered in October 2014, the comet could be the largest ever detected by humanity, according to a report from Space.com. The […]

Share this Item You are free to share this article under the Attribution 4.0 International license. The formation of the planets – the process by which sharp, round, distinct planets form from a swirling cloud of rugged asteroids and mini-planets – was probably even messier and more complicated than most scientists would like to see. […]

The biggest comet ever detected, Bernardinelli-Bernstein, is heading towards our solar system. The comet is located 29 astronomical units (AU) – 29 times the distance between Earth and the Sun – and is therefore expected to arrive in about a decade, according to new research published on the arXiv.org preprint server. Right now, the 93-mile-wide […]