What is the Largest Asteroid in the Solar System?

Which of the following is a dwarf planet and the largest asteroid in the solar system? Extra facts: it is about 980 kilometers (609 miles) in pole-to-pole diameter and 910 km (565 mi) in equatorial diameter. The answer is listed further below!
A — Pluto
B — Ceres
C — ʻOumuamua
D — Orion

































































ANSWER

B . . . . . Ceres; some sources say Vesta is the largest asteroid because Ceres is considered a dwarf planet. However, a dwarf planet — particularly one located in the Asteroid Belt (Ceres is) — can also be an asteroid and vice versa, hence why the Amazing Astronomy lists Ceres as #1.

How Many Exoplanets?

According to NASA and Caltech’s Exoplanet Archive website (↗), there are over 5,000 confirmed exoplanets as of January 2023 and now 5,587 as of February 2024!

Famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson also mentioned this fun fact on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on September 22nd, 2022. Situated far away from our solar system planets, these exoplanets surround stars found in constellations including but definitely not limited to Andromeda, Aquarius, Aquila, Ara, Aries, Auriga, Boötes, Cancer, Canes Venatici, Canis Major, Cetus, Chamaeleon, Coma Berenices, Corona Borealis, Cygnus, Delphinus, Draco, Eridanus, Grus, Hercules, Hydrus, Indus, Leo, Lepus, Lupus, Lynx, Microscopium, Pegasus, Pictor, Pisces, Piscis Austrinus, Scorpius, Sextans, Taurus, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, and Virgo.

The Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in 2020

The wonderful astronomical universe has given us another treat in 2020: a rare conjunction of the solar system's two largest planets — Jupiter and Saturn — that is visible in the night sky! The duo's closest encounter in the night sky perfectly matches up with the Northern Hemisphere's Winter Solstice: December 21st. This sight is rare across multiple centuries; a conjunction may happen every 20 years or so but is oftentimes not visible from Earth. You might have to wait until your night sky is clear enough to see it, but the closeness of the two planets will continue for many days ahead. The sky maps above and below show the planets' positions in the night sky as viewed from my Midwestern area. The planets might appear in a different position in your night sky depending on your geographic location, yet should be visible from almost anywhere on planet Earth!

Hubble Space Telescope: 30 Years of Delightful Discoveries

Saturn's New Moons

Scott Sheppard and fellow team members of the Carnegie Institution for Science made a historic discovery recently. While operating the Subaru Telescope on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea ("White Mountain" in English), they found 20 previously undiscovered moons orbiting Saturn. This bumps up the total moons for Saturn to 82 (confirmed and unconfirmed moons), which surpasses Jupiter's 79 confirmed and unconfirmed total ... and which means I have to update my Moons page (linked above)! This story is quite amazing because Jupiter has long been known as having the most moons! This current event originally came from Astronomy.com (Astronomy Magazine) (↗).

New Discovery of 12 Moons Around Jupiter

Click the image above to enlarge it in a lightbox window.

An astronomy team from Carnegie Institution for Science unveiled its discovery of a dozen small moons — during their quest to find more discoveries (including possible planets) beyond Pluto. One newly discovered moon is considered an oddball due to its anomalous retrograde orbit. The total count of moons for the solar system's largest planet is now 79, the most of any planet.

Read more in the Carnegie Science press release (↗).

Hubble Space Telescope on 60 Minutes

Vast: After 27 years in space, the Hubble Space Telescope is sending back some of its most beautiful and revealing images from across the vast universe. Bill Whitaker reports.

CBS 60 Minutes (↗)

Cassini Flies Between Saturn and its Rings

  

On April 26th, the Cassini spacecraft (NASA) of the bicontinental Cassini-Huygens program successfully entered the space between Saturn and its mesmerizing rings. Today's "dive" into this area is the first of a series of 22 "Grand Finale" orbits to collect photographs and data pertaining to Saturn, its rings, and its minuscule inner moons. Speaking of moons, the top-left photo above shows the Atlas moon in the distance and a sheet of rings in the foreground. Cassini's ultimate goal is to plunge into Saturn's gaseous realm on September 15th of this year. As of today at 1:00 P.M. Eastern Time, Cassini is about 267,000 miles away from Saturn's gaseous atmosphere. This is the Cassini Grand Finale's official website (↗), which includes a photo gallery of raw (unprocessed) imagery. By the way, Google celebrated the monumental occasion with a Google Doodle:

Mountains and Plains of Pluto

Fascinating images are being transmitted to Earth from the revolutionary New Horizons spacecraft, which came its closest to Pluto in July this year. This NASA Astronomy Photo of the Day shows never-before-seen detail of the dwarf planet's topography of mountains and plains. Very amazing!

Pluto Photographed with Pristine Detail

This colored photo by NASA, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, and the Southwest Research Institute reveals a heart-shaped region boasting mountains and ice.

Since the time of being demoted to “dwarf planet” status in late 2006, Pluto shines in the astronomy news spotlight once again. After nine years of its January 2006 launch, NASA’s New Horizons space probe passed Pluto at its closest encounter ever on Tuesday, July 14th, 2015. Now, earthlings in the United States and around the world are treated with new, spectacular images of Pluto and its moons, such as Charon and Hydra. Photos were taken by a device named LORRI, the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager. Non-enhanced images are available to the public at this website: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounter/index.php; link opens in new tab or window. LORRI captured images of interesting geologic features on Pluto and its planets. Photographs reveal mountains standing more than 11,000 feet high (about 3,500 meters) on Pluto, deep canyons on Charon, and a less-cratered Charon surface than initially thought. Knowing that Charon has a less-cratered surface means Pluto’s largest moon has a relatively young surface shaped by active geologic changes, which can wipe out evidence of Kuiper Belt debris impacts. Pluto has long captured the hearts of humans for being a small "underdog" planet and having a Disney character with the same name. Now we know Pluto has a heart - a large, heart-shaped southern region comprised of mountains and ice geology, that is.

Today we shared new images from @NASANewHorizons and its #PlutoFlyby. Watch the excitement: https://t.co/8bfZemSnxD pic.twitter.com/rUv2vKGPUl

— NASA (@NASA) July 15, 2015

Several interesting facts abound with regards to the New Horizons mission. The space probe carries ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto at the Lowell Observatory in 1930. Speed increased when New Horizons utilized Jupiter’s orbital forces to fling itself faster towards Pluto, shortening the trip by a couple of years. It has the ability to operate for more than 20 years – as long as space debris does not destroy it.

Updates from the New Herizons mission team can be found on Facebook at facebook.com/new.horizons1 and on Twitter at twitter.com/NASANewHorizons.

Earth, Venus, and Jupiter Line Up

There is a particular word with no true vowels perfectly explaining the concept of three planets lining up: syzygy. As of late June and early July 2015, the solar system currently experiences a syzygy with Earth, Venus, and Jupiter forming almost a straight line across their orbits. The image depicting this phenomenon above is derived from the compact disc Planetarium software, version 1.8 (© 1998 JC Research, Toxsoft), which still displays updated astronomy data despite its 20th-century copyright year. Another fantastic facet of the syzygy event, Jupiter and Venus displayed their celestial spheres in the June 30th night sky less than 1/3 degree apart from each other - less than the moon's diameter. While Jupiter and Venus appear near each other often, they usually do not come as close as they did on June 30th! The zoomed-in image below depicts Jupiter and Venus' close proximity and location in the constellation Leo.

P.S. Happy Independence Day in the United States!