New Mexico still recognizes Pluto as a planet when it passes over their night skies, due to Clyde Tombaugh’s discovery of Pluto and residency in Las Cruces. Despite being demoted in 2006, Pluto was visited by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft in 2015. Pluto was demoted from a “planet” to a “dwarf planet” in 2006, but […]
Pluto was downgraded from being a planet to a dwarf planet or minor planet due to a new definition of what constitutes a classical planet by the International Astronomical Union. The new standards require a celestial body to be a round shape and gravitational dominant enough to keep anything of similar size from floating around […]
Planet Xena, discovered in 2003, is larger than Pluto and located in the Kuiper Belt. Its status as a planet is debated due to its irregular orbit and size. Its estimated size has been reduced, and a universal definition of a planet is needed to determine its status. Planet Xena is a globe encircling the […]
Terrestrial planets are the four closest to the Sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. They have solid surfaces, weak magnetic fields, and no or few moons. Gas planets are Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus, which are much larger and composed of gases and liquids. They have strong magnetic fields, multiple moons, and rings. Each terrestrial […]
Planet X is a hypothetical planet beyond Neptune that has been searched for by astronomers. Pluto and Eris were found during the search, but are now classified as dwarf planets. The existence of Planet X was posited to explain mathematical discrepancies in the orbits of Uranus, Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune. However, the Voyager 2 spacecraft […]
PSR J1719-1438 b is a planet made of compressed carbon, 4,000 light-years away from Earth, about the size of Jupiter, but 20 times denser, and the remnant core of a white dwarf. Other unusual planets include OGLE-2005-BLG-390L b, the coldest known planet, and WASP-12b, the hottest known planet. HAT-P-1 is wider than Jupiter but lighter. […]
Astronomers at Ohio State University have discovered KELT-9b, a planet three times the size of Jupiter and the hottest exoplanet ever identified. Its proximity to its star means temperatures reach over 7,800°F, causing life-sustaining molecules to be unable to exist. The planet also receives violent radiation, which could cause it to evaporate completely. Ohio State […]
Jupiter is the oldest planet in the Solar System, according to research by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Its solid core grew to 20 times the size of Earth in its first million years, and it likely “ate up” much of the debris circling around. Chemical analysis of ancient meteorites helped determine Jupiter’s age and origin. […]
Minor planets are celestial objects that orbit the sun but are not traditional planets or comets. They include asteroids, Trojans, and centaurs, and there are over 500 million in the universe. Pluto was reclassified as a minor planet in 2006, along with Eris, Haume, Makemate, and Ceres. Naming procedures are in place, and suggestions must […]
In 2006, Pluto was demoted to a dwarf planet by the IAU. Dwarf planets are celestial bodies in regular orbit around a sun with sufficient mass to be shaped by their own gravity. There are five known dwarf planets, including Ceres, Makemake, Haumea, and Eris. Ceres and Pluto were both classified as dwarf planets in […]
Astronomers in the 19th century believed in a hypothetical planet called Vulcan, closer to the Sun than Mercury, due to discrepancies in Mercury’s orbit. Observations of black spots transiting the Sun were thought to be Vulcan, but Einstein’s theory of relativity explained the anomaly. The search for Vulcanoid objects continues, but the Yarkovsky effect makes […]
Osiris, a gas giant planet orbiting HD 209458, was the first exoplanet discovered orbiting a Sun-like star. It has been the subject of many astronomical milestones, including the first extrasolar atmosphere to be measured and the first direct light to be captured by an exoplanet. Osiris has a huge ellipsoidal envelope of hot gas surrounding […]
Dwarf planets are celestial bodies that are spherical and orbit the Sun, but have not cleared their orbit of debris. Ceres, Pluto, and Eris are the only recognized dwarf planets, but there may be up to 200 more in the solar system. Objects smaller than dwarf planets are called small bodies, including comets and asteroids. […]
The English name for Earth comes from the Anglo-Saxon erda or ertha, meaning “land” or “soil.” It is the only planet not named after a Greek or Roman god. Other planets in our solar system have mythological names, such as Venus, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, and Uranus. Planet Earth is known as Terra in Portuguese, Dünya […]
