The studies - both published in Icarus - look at something astronomers already knew: that Eris and Makemake, the second and fourth largest dwarf planets in our solar system, contain a lot of methane.

Pluto, discovered in 1930, was once considered the ninth planet in our solar system. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet because it doesn't meet all ...

After tracking a puzzling X-ray signal from a dying star for decades, astronomers may have finally explained its source: The ...

For more information on the biggest astronomical events of 2025, check out our celestial calendar. Pluto was reclassified from a planet to a dwarf planet by the International Astronomical Union ...

Some measure hundreds of kilometres across. The largest object is the asteroid belt is the dwarf planet Ceres, which is 950km in diameter (that's about the same the length as Great Britain).

The building blocks of life could have been delivered to Ceres by one or more space rocks from the outer asteroid belt.