Written by Education Assistant Mark Grimley Today we are going to talk about some lesser-known bodies in our solar system – and one that you might still be upset about. These are the dwarf planets in our part of the ‘neighbourhood.’ But first I want to clear a few things Read more…
Now we weren’t going to leave out everyone’s favourite dwarf planet, were we?! Small but Mighty! Pluto is named after the Roman god of the Underworld, who coincidentally was also the god of wealth as diamond and other jewels supposedly came from the Underworld. It’s ironic that such a tiny Read more…
Nine years of waiting are over! New Horizons has been to Pluto! Well done humans! Pluto has turned out to be slightly bigger than we thought having a diameter of 2370 km. This means Pluto is about 30km larger than Eris, making Pluto the largest known object in the Read more…
Our Solar System is vast. We on Earth cruise around the Sun in an orbit with a radius of about 150 million km (93 million miles), but the most distant planet, Neptune, is about thirty times further from the Sun. Enormous distances and the limitations of rocketry means reaching the Read more…
In July 2015, we will finally have our long-awaited closeup views of the dwarf planet Pluto and its moons when NASA’s New Horizons probe flies past the tiny and distant worlds. Assuming all goes well, suddenly we will have revealed to us about 25 million square kilometres of alien landscapes Read more…
When Percival Lowell began the search for “Planet X” little did he know the countless arguments he would cause and effectively how these would lead to a seemingly ever changing solar system. “Planet X” was not the believed birthplace of the X-Men for anyone hoping for the possibility of super Read more…