Pluto’s Pain: The Unsung Story of Ceres

Pluto is once again in the press, astronomers having recently discovered a fifth moon about the tiny, icy world. -And, again, Pluto’s official designation as a “dwarf planet” is coming under fire. However, Pluto’s pain really hearkens back to a much older story – one of an unsung planet that stood proudly in the rightful […]

Solar System has more than one “Planet X”?

Recent observations of the nearby (44 light-years away) multi-planet star system Upsilon Andromedae have kindled in my mind an intriguing question: Namely, can our own solar system have one or perhaps many “Planet Xs” hiding in oblique orbits? Allow me to explain. It has been known for quite some time that the Upsilon Andromedae star […]

Give it a rest, people: Voyager 2 spacecraft not hijacked by aliens

NASA is having a hard time talking to the Voyager 2 probe. It started in late April and has only gotten worse, with the latest transmission being quite garbled. Now, I can understand a bit of fun, tounge-in-cheek speculation, but this “Aliens have hijacked Voyager 2!” thing has gotten way out of hand. It’s as though someone […]

Solar System’s “Planet X” Returns!

Our solar system may have just gotten a lot more interesting. Researchers studying the orbits of comets at the University of Louisiana have found a problem. -They’ve discovered an inconsistency with how comets are spread out compared to what you would expect under ordinary galactic conditions. In an article recently submitted to the journal Icarus, […]