Icy dunes on Pluto: spacecraft reveals new details about planet’s surface

1 June 2018

When Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930, he could not have known that he was opening a whole field of science that is only now coming into its own: the study of planetary landscapes, or comparative planetary morphology. Since the announcement of Pluto’s discovery, the body has been a subject of much speculation: even from […]

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Mordor mystery: scientists solve puzzle of the strange, dark north pole on Pluto’s moon Charon

16 September 2016

Had Pluto itself not proved to be so spectacular when NASA’s New Horizons probe flew past last year, there can be no doubt that its large moon Charon would have won more admirers. The remarkable moon has a mysterious dark-red stain over its north pole, called “Mordor Macula” by the New Horizons team – where […]

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The magical Solar System discoveries we made in 2015

24 December 2015

It has been a busy year for Solar System exploration – and particularly our galactic neighbourhood’s small icy bodies. Comets, asteroids, Kuiper Belt Objects and planetary satellites have all been in the news – from stunning images of comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko at the start of the year, to the recent close-up of Saturn’s moon, Enceladus, […]

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