Space News

A history of attempts to study Pluto over the last 100 years, from its role as the mysterious "Planet X" to its upcoming New Horizons close-up.

There's a near-perfect heart shape on Pluto's rusty red surface which scientists are seeing for the first time as a piano-sized NASA spacecraft, New Horizons, hurtles toward the distant body on its way toward a historic ...

Eighty-five years after being discovered by an astronomer named Clyde, a camera called Ralph is about to bring Pluto into sharp focus. The post Meet Ralph, the New Horizons Camera Bringing Pluto into Sharp Focus appeared...

The closer the New Horizons spacecraft gets to Pluto, the more puzzling the dwarf planet becomes.

Pluto, reveal thyself, and Earthlings, enjoy the show. On Tuesday, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will sweep past Pluto and present the previously unexplored world in all its icy glory.

Come Tuesday, Clyde Tombaugh will pass within 7,800 miles (12,550 kilometers) of the icy world he discovered 85 years ago.

Space.com managing editor Tariq Malik is thrilled for the upcoming Pluto flyby of New Horizons, and will be covering it live on social media for us throughout the encounter. See his posts here as they happen.

NASA will provide comprehensive television, Internet and social media coverage this week of the agency's New Horizons spacecraft historic July 14 flyby of Pluto. The time for the flyby preview news briefing on NASA Telev...

Every massive galaxy has a black hole at its center, and the heftier the galaxy, the bigger its black hole. But why are the two related? After all, the black hole is millions of times smaller and less massive than...

Three billion miles from Earth and just two and a half million miles from Pluto, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has taken its best image of four dark spots that continue to captivate....

As the New Horizons probe closes in on Pluto--now less than two days away!--there have been a lot of thoughtful articles looking back at the people responsible for the discovery of this remarkable little world. They have...

July 11th daily pre-flyby overview of the New Horizons mission, the spacecraft and its suite of instruments and a summary of Pluto science to date from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Lau...

It's been a while since I've posted an amazing volcano picture from space, so here you go: The Wolf volcano on the Galapagos island of Isabela. But it's not what you think: This shot was taken by NASA's Terra Earth-obser...

(International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research) According to a new study of more than 20,000 merging galaxies, when two different sized galaxies smash together, the larger galaxy stops the smaller one making new star...

Today (July 11) we got our last, best and clearest look at a quartet of perplexing dark spots on Pluto's far side from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft – now just two days and two million miles (4 million km) out from hi...