Visual observation of Pluto using amateur telescopes is challenging due to its faint magnitude (currently 14.4), requiring instruments larger than 8 inches in aperture for a reasonable chance of ...

It started, as many cosmic enigmas do, with a dim dot of light on a Hubble Space Telescope photo the sort that professional astronomers are used to seeing, but never expect to upend discussion of the ...

Pluto, discovered in 1930, was once considered the ninth planet in our solar system. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet because it doesn't meet all the ...

Scientists at NASA for the first time have been able to observe the make up of Pluto and other small and icy celestial bodies in the outer solar system. They had expected to find that the surfaces of ...

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have peered into a mysterious blue haze cloaking the surface of Pluto — and discovered that it's controlling the dwarf planet's climate and atmosphere.

The relative quantities of volatile gases like methane and ethane can reveal key details about distant Kuiper Belt objects. A surprising chemical difference between Pluto and Sedna, another dwarf ...