The reason Pluto lost its planet status is not valid, according to new research. […]

Twelve new moons orbiting Jupiter have been found -- 11 'normal' outer moons, and one that they're calling an 'oddball.' Astronomers first spotted the moons in the spring of 2017 while they were looking for very distant solar system objects as part of the hunt for a possible massive planet far beyond Pluto. […]

Scientists have discovered dunes on Pluto, and say they are likely to have been formed of methane ice grains released into its rarefied atmosphere. […]

Scientists integrated NASA's New Horizons discoveries with data from ESA's Rosetta mission to develop a new theory about how Pluto may have formed at the edge of our solar system. […]

Legendary explorers and visionaries, real and fictitious, are among those immortalized by the IAU in the first set of official surface-feature names for Pluto's largest moon, Charon. […]

Every year throughout its 4.5-billion-year life, ice volcanoes on the dwarf planet Ceres generate enough material on average to fill a movie theater, according to a new study led by the University of Arizona. […]

An unusual infrared emission detected by the Hubble Space Telescope from a nearby neutron star could indicate that the pulsar has features never before seen. The observation, by a team of researchers at Penn State, Sabanci University in Turkey, and the University of Arizona, could help astronomers better understand the evolution of neutron stars—the incredibly dense remnants of massive stars after a supernova. A paper describing the research and two possible explanations for the unusual […]

The reason Pluto lost its planet status is not valid, according to new research from the University of Central Florida in Orlando. […]

Astronomers are engaged in a lively debate over plans to rename one of the laws of physics. […]

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has made its first detection of its next flyby target, the Kuiper Belt object nicknamed Ultima Thule, more than four months ahead of its New Year's 2019 close encounter. […]

New Horizons is in good health and cruising closer each day to our next encounter, an end-of-the-year flyby of the Kuiper Belt object (KBO) 2014 MU69 (or “MU69” for short). Currently, the spacecraft is hibernating while the mission team plans the MU69 flyby. During hibernation, three of the instruments on New Horizons—SWAP, PEPSSI and SDC—collect … Continue reading "The PI’s Perspective: Why Didn’t Voyager Explore the Kuiper Belt?" […]

New Horizons is in good health and cruising closer each day to its next encounter: a flyby of the Kuiper Belt object (KBO) 2014 MU69 (or “MU69” for short). If you follow our mission, you likely know that flyby will occur on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day 2019, which is just barely over … Continue reading "The PI’s Perspective: Wrapping up 2017 En Route to Our Next Flyby" […]

Today’s blog is from Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado—principal investigator for NASA’s New Horizons mission. Three weeks ago we put our New Horizons spacecraft into hibernation mode, the first time we’d done that since late 2014, before the Pluto flyby. By coincidence, that same day – April 7—was also the … Continue reading "No Sleeping Back on Earth!" […]

Today’s blog is from Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado—principal investigator for NASA’s New Horizons mission.   As 2016 ends, I can’t help but point out an interesting symmetry in where the mission has recently been and where we are going. Exactly two years ago we had just taken New Horizons … Continue reading "Exploring Pluto and a Billion Miles Beyond" […]

This blog is from Hal Weaver, who joined the New Horizons team in May 2002, his first assignment after taking a job at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. He started out as the principal investigator for the LOng Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) and in 2003 became the New Horizons project scientist. Now that … Continue reading "Pluto: What a Journey!" […]

Explanation: Made from more than 100 New Horizons images taken over six weeks of approach and close flyby, this video offers a trip in to Pluto — starting with a distant spacecraft's-eye view of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, to an eventual ride in for a "landing" on the shoreline of Pluto's informally named Sputnik Planum. The video shows what it would be like to ride aboard an...Countdown to Pluto Encounter!There are -1169 days, -8 hours, -49 minutes and -10 seconds until […]

Explanation: Pluto picture of the day may be winding down, but New Horizons still travels on. One year after the Pluto flyby, this image shows New Horizons' current position along its full planned trajectory. The green segment of the line shows where New Horizons has traveled since launch; the red indicates the spacecraft's future path. Positions of stars with magnitude 12 or brighter ar... […]

Despite clouds and rain, oppressive heat and humidity, and myriad logistical challenges, New Horizons science team members deployed to Sénégal last month saw what they came to see. […]

New Horizons' journey from Pluto to its next flyby target, the Kuiper Belt object nicknamed Ultima Thule, is 90 percent complete. Principal Investigator Alan Stern covers the many activities leading up to the mission's close encounter with "Ultima" on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day 2019 –less than four months from now! […]

New Horizons has made its first detection of its next flyby target, the Kuiper Belt object nicknamed Ultima Thule, more than four months ahead of its New Year's 2019 close encounter. […]

New Horizons successfully transitioned from spin mode into 3-axis mode last week, meaning the spacecraft has been positioned and configured to start approach operations toward its next flyby target in the Kuiper Belt. […]

Using telescopes to watch the distant Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule pass in front of star on Aug. 3-4, observing teams in Senegal and Colombia report that they've gathered data on New Horizons' next flyby target. […]