Soon after Pluto was discovered in 1930, astronomers learned that its orbit overlaps Neptune's orbit and that it’s rather tilted, compared to the nearly common plane of the other planets. Propagating its orbit into the past and the future then revealed the surprising property... click to read more

How did planets arise? How did the Earth become a unique planet with a habitable surface? A way to address these long-standing questions is to explore the "small bodies" of the Solar System. In addition to the planets and the satellites circuiting around them, our... click to read more

With each new spacecraft launch, we become more familiar with today's Solar System, from our nearest neighbor planets to those in cold and distant outer orbits, yet the details of how the Solar System formed and evolved to its present state remain a mystery. We... click to read more

Our solar system did not form in isolation from the rest of the Galaxy. It was part of a star cluster where each member has its own planets and asteroids. The close proximity of the cluster members favored strong gravitational interactions that pulled asteroids and... click to read more