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Topic: Pluto

Pluto and Charon (Getty Images/HYPERSPHERE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY)

Pluto captured its moon with a kiss

Elizabeth Hlavinka

An artist's impression of the Voyager 1 space probe flying past Saturn in the outer solar system, circa 1980. (Photo by Space Frontiers/Getty Images)

The oldest space probes that still work

Planet Pluto illustration incorporating NASA New Horizons terrain imagery (Getty Images/HYPERSPHERE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY)

The forgotten "planets" of our sun

Painting depicting the new horizons space probe as it approaches Charon, Pluto's moon. Dated 2015. (Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

How dark is outer space?

Briley Lewis - Massive Science

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A new SPHERE/VLT image of Hygiea, which could be the Solar System’s smallest dwarf planet yet. As an object in the main asteroid belt, Hygiea satisfies right away three of the four requirements to be classified as a dwarf planet: it orbits around the Sun, it is not a moon and, unlike a planet, it has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit. The final requirement is that it have enough mass that its own gravity pulls it into a roughly spherical shape. This is what VLT observations have now revealed about Hygiea. (ESO/P. Vernazza et al./MISTRAL algorithm (ONERA/CNRS))

Is Hygiea the new Pluto?

(NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI via AP)

Is there life on Pluto?

The New Horizons spacecraft is headed towards an object nicknamed "Ultima Thule" (NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI via AP)

What New Horizons will see next

The New Horizons spacecraft is headed towards an object nicknamed "Ultima Thule" (NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI via AP)

Probing the history of the solar system

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Pluto (Instagram: NASA)

The last known world

Colin Gorenstein

Neil deGrasse Tyson (AP/Frank Micelotta)

(Sabino Parente, via Shutterstock)

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