pluto
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Pluto’s Neighborhood May Extend Billions of Miles Farther Into Space Than We Thought
While journeying through the far reaches of the solar system, the New Horizons probe picked up a dusty trail of icy fragments that may indicate that the Kuiper Belt—home to former planet Pluto and countless other objects—is way bigger than we thought. New observations from the NASA mission suggest that the massive donut-shaped outer zone…
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You’ve Never Seen Neptune Look Like This
The Webb Space Telescope has produced yet another view of a solar system planet, and you may not be able to guess the world from the image alone. The new portrait of Neptune shows its dramatic and often overlooked rings, and the European Space Agency says this is the clearest view of the planet since…
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A Beacon in the Galaxy: Scientists Update Humanity’s Message to Aliens
An international team of scientists has formulated an updated, binary-coded message that could eventually be transmitted to aliens in our galaxy. It’s jam-packed with details, including the chemical makeup of humans, a map of Earth, and even our precise location in the Milky Way. What could possibly go wrong?
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What Astronomers Thought Pluto Looked Like Before They Saw It Up Close
It’s been 91 years since amateur astronomer Clyde Tombaugh first spotted Pluto on a set of glass negatives. Since then, the object has been declared a planet, named, and, of course, demoted to a dwarf planet in 2006. Whatever its status, our fascination with Pluto has held fast. But until very recently, we didn’t have…