The International Astronomical Union (IAU) currently recognizes five dwarf planets in our solar system, though there are likely many more. The most famous of the bunch is Pluto, way out beyond the ...

Using AI to comb through data gathered by NASA's Dawn spacecraft, scientists have conducted a detailed scan of the dwarf planet Ceres to map regions rich in organic molecules to determine whether ...

Between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter lies a ring-shaped region called the asteroid belt, home to the vast majority of our solar system’s space rocks. The asteroid belt is as old as the solar system ...

At first glance, the dwarf planet Ceres hardly inspires dreams of alien life. Orbiting between Mars and Jupiter in the asteroid belt, it is a frigid, gray world, battered and cracked. Its surface ...

How do you build a planet, let alone one capable of sustaining and evolving life? The clues to the “recipe” can perhaps be found in the leftovers scattered around our solar system. Things like ...

Astronomers have long been intrigued by the makeup of the asteroid belt’s largest body. When it was first spotted in 1801, Ceres appeared dry and rocky, its surface marked by craters and dents. For ...

The organic material found in a few areas on the surface of dwarf planet Ceres is probably of exogenic origin. Impacting asteroids from the outer asteroid belt may have brought it with them. According ...

Scientists are fired up about these building blocks of life Erin Blakemore Correspondent The dwarf planet Ceres may seem to be little more than an asteroid. It has an inhospitable surface temperature ...

Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, has long perplexed planetary scientists. Once considered a planet, then an asteroid, and now officially classified as a dwarf ...

The dwarf planet is a bizarre, cryovolcanic world. However, the organic deposits discovered on its surface so far are unlikely to originate from its interior. The organic material found in a few areas ...

(Nanowerk News) Organic molecules are among the necessary inventory of life-friendly worlds. On Earth, the compounds of carbon, hydrogen and – in smaller quantities – other elements form the basic ...