Planetary scientist Adeene Denton runs computer simulations to investigate Pluto, the moons of Saturn and other icy bodies in the solar system.

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Credit: NASA/Robert Lea (created with Canva) New research suggests that billions of years ago, ...

New research suggests Pluto may have had a “kiss” with its largest moon billions of years ago in a harmless collision. The report, published in “Nature Geoscience,” describes how the minuscule dwarf ...

Eons ago, in the frigid depths of our solar system, a dramatic collision occurred between two icy worlds. Instead of a catastrophic smash-up, the two bodies “kissed,” merging temporarily like a ...

This composite image of Pluto, right, and Charon, its largest moon, showcases photos captured by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft in July 2015. Unlike how scientists believe Earth's moon formed billions ...

Back in the 1980’s, a now-defunct magazine called Science Digest held a contest to name Planet X — the still-undiscovered world that astronomers believed might lie out beyond Pluto. One of the best ...

Some 4.5 billion years ago, the dwarf planet Pluto was suddenly joined by a companion. For a brief period – perhaps only hours – they danced as if arm in arm before gently separating, a grand do-si-do ...

If you lived on one of Pluto’s moons Nix or Hydra, you’d have a hard time setting your alarm clock. That’s because you could not know for sure when, or even in which direction, the sun would rise. A ...

In the Feb. 23 issue of the journal Nature, a team led by Dr. Hal Weaver of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., describes its discovery of two new moons ...

Finally, a family portrait of Pluto is beginning to emerge! For the first time ever, astronomers have captured two never-before-photographed moons orbiting Pluto. NASA's New Horizons spacecraft ...

Simulation of the moon Nix which orbits Pluto every 25 days. Here that's sped up to one orbit every two seconds, so we can see its chaotic spin more clearly. Little moons in the solar system have it ...

Alfredo has a PhD in Astrophysics and a Master's in Quantum Fields and Fundamental Forces from Imperial College London.View full profile Alfredo has a PhD in Astrophysics and a Master's in Quantum ...