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 ...

Pluto is a bit of a loner. The dwarf planet is no longer considered a regular planet; it does not orbit on the same plane as the solar system's eight planets; and its orbit is both highly elliptical ...

Billions of years ago, in the frozen edges of the solar system, a violent impact shaped one of space’s oddest pairs. Instead of a typical planet-moon setup, Pluto and Charon became a binary system.

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The heart-shaped Tombaugh Regio feature on the surface of Pluto. | Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins ...

Lowell Observatory's sixth annual "I Heart Pluto Festival" will honor the remote icy world that was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006 When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an ...

Pluto and its moon Charon may have been briefly locked together in a cosmic “kiss”, before the dwarf planet released the smaller body and recaptured it in its orbit. Charon is the largest of Pluto’s ...

A possible cousin of Pluto seems to be circling the far reaches of the solar system. The dwarf planet candidate 2017 OF201 travels in a superwide orbit, with the sun relatively near one end of its ...

Pluto's largest moon, Charon, likely formed through a capture event in the early, crowded Kuiper Belt. Three-body encounters and tidal forces allowed Charon to lose energy and become permanently bound ...

The “demoted” dwarf planet Pluto and its largest moon Charon make an unusual pair, and for decades, scientists have been discussing how the binary system—in which each mutually orbits the other—came ...

This close up look at Pluto and Charon, taken as part of the mission's latest optical navigation ("OpNav") campaign from Jan. 25-31, 2015, comes from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on ...

This composite image of Pluto, right, and Charon, its largest moon, showcases photos captured by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft in July 2015. Credit: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI Unlike how scientists believe ...