Dwarf Planets

Dwarf planet Ceres was first glimpsed through a telescope 215 years ago, and as researchers learn more than ever, they continue to be amazed by the object.

Take a totally epic, slightly trippy flyover tour of Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt, in this new video from NASA.

More than a thousand times farther from Earth than the moon, farther even than the sun, an extraordinary extraterrestrial expedition is taking place.

The top space and astronomy stories of 2015 range from solar system missions to space station visits, from distant galaxies to Earth-like planets.

Observations made by NASA's Dawn spacecraft suggest that Ceres' many bright spots could be made primarily of hydrated magnesium sulfates. Here on Earth, magnesium sulfate is sold as Epsom salt.

A newly found object lies about nine and a half billion miles from the sun, or two to three times farther away than Pluto, making it a candidate for the most distant known dwarf planet.

The new maps from NASA's Dawn mission highlight the compositional and topographic differences across Ceres, the largest object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.