Earth has a newly-discovered neighbor in the solar system. But the heavenly body – possibly a dwarf planet à la Pluto – isn't a frequent visitor. Located beyond Neptune, its extreme orbit ...

In 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) voted on the definition of a planet. Famously, Pluto no longer met the criteria and was demoted to a dwarf planet. Things have been a bit of a mess ...

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft captured this high-resolution enhanced color view of Pluto that is inserted beneath the Short Wave logo. The image combines blue, red and infrared images taken by the ...

Deep in the outer solar system, billions of miles from Earth, lurks a realm of small, icy worlds called dwarf planets. Astronomers know relatively little about these dim and distant objects, but in ...

In this except from "Space Camp," a special series from NPR science podcast Short Wave, host Regina Barber delves into Pluto's demotion from planet to dwarf planet. It's not exactly news to say that ...

For many people, the definition of a planet was only made clear in 2006, when the spunky world Pluto was demoted from a planet to a dwarf planet. Now, a team of astronomers is pushing for “planet” ...

On January 5, 2005, astronomers at NASA discovered Eris, the second-largest dwarf planet in the solar system. Eris is just slightly smaller than Pluto, and it orbits the sun about three times farther ...

Though Pluto has formally been considered a dwarf planet for almost two decades, it still has many lessons left for planetary scientists —... Pluto isn’t a planet — but it gives us clues for how the ...

Pluto hasn't been a planet for almost 20 years. In the early 2000s, scientists discovered several objects of a similar size to Pluto. So, during the summer of 2006, members of the International ...