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 ...

Do aliens sleep? You may take sleep for granted, but research suggests many planets that could evolve life don’t have a day and night cycle. It’s hard to imagine, but there are organisms living in ...

A new survey maps nearby K-type stars and shows why these long-lived, stable stars are important targets in the search for ...

Planets that orbit white dwarf stars should be too hot to host alien life, theories suggest. But a new study accounting for Einstein's general relativity may rewrite that rule. When you purchase ...

Dwarf planet Ceres now appears less like a dead rock and more like a world that may have briefly brimmed with potential for life When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate ...

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 ...

Ammonite was discovered using the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii, with follow-up confirmation from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. Its orbit and size officially qualify it as a distant dwarf planet.

It's an evocative idea that has long bedeviled scientists: a huge and mysterious planet is lurking in the darkness at the edge of our solar system, evading all our efforts to spot it. Some astronomers ...

A color-enhanced view of Ceres, the nearest dwarf planet to Earth, high­lights its Oc­ca­tor crater. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA Pluto is the most famous dwarf planet, due in ...

How many dwarf planets are there in our solar system? The recent discovery of 2017 OF201 makes the tally anywhere between five and 18, plus hundreds of potentially undiscovered ones, depending on whom ...