Pluto was discovered by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh in 1930. A 9th planet had been looked for for some time. It was believed that such a planet had to exist in order to explain some odd …

Pluto was discovered in 1930 by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh. However, it was not until the year 2015 that we finally got a close-up look at the dwarf planet. After a nine-year journey, NASA's …

It takes 310 Earth years for this dwarf planet to make one orbit around the Sun. Makemake was first observed in 2005 by a team of astronomers led by Michael Brown. Its codename was …

Sir William Herschel labeled these objects as asteroids, so in 1802 Ceres became known as an asteroid, not a planet. Ceres was the largest known asteroid in the asteroid belt until 2006. In …

Between the inner and outer planets is an asteroid belt. Every planet, except for Earth, was named for an ancient Roman god or goddess. Some of the planets have naturally occurring …

StarChild Question of the Month for February 2003 Question: Who figured out the Earth is round? Answer: It has actually been known that the Earth was round since the time of the ancient …

The probe took samples of Jupiter's atmosphere as it plunged into the gas giant planet in 2003. On October 15, 1997, the plutonium-powered Cassini probe began what was anticipated to be …

In November of 1996, Mars Global Surveyor began a 10 month mission to the Red Planet. With the start of its journey, Surveyor became the sixteenth space probe to fly-by, orbit, or land on …

However, as astronomers learned more about the planets and also about a new group of objects known as the Kuiper Belt Objects, it became clear that Pluto was more like the objects in that …

Venus was the first planet to ever be reached by a space probe. In 1962, Mariner 2 flew within 34,400 kilometers of the surface of Venus and transmitted to Earth information about its …