Dwarf Planet
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NASA
NASA: Ceres May Have Had Long-Standing Energy to Fuel Habitability
The dwarf planet is cold now, but new research paints a picture of Ceres hosting a deep, long-lived energy source that may have maintained habitable conditions in the past. New NASA research has found that Ceres may have had a lasting source of chemical energy: the right types of molecules needed to fuel some microbial metabolisms. Although there is no…
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NASA
Planet Sizes and Locations in Our Solar System
Our solar system has eight planets, and five officially recognized dwarf planets. Which planet is biggest? Which is smallest? What is the order of the planets as we move out from the Sun? This is a simple guide to the sizes of planets based on the equatorial diameter – or width – at the equator of each planet. Each planet’s width…
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Press Releases
Gas Insulation Could be Protecting an Ocean Inside Pluto
SAPPORO, Japan, May 20, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Computer simulations provide compelling evidence that an insulating layer of gas hydrates could keep a subsurface ocean from freezing beneath Pluto’s icy exterior, according to a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience. Natural color images of Pluto taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft in 2015. Source: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Alex Parker…
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