A vast ring of rocky leftovers between Mars and Jupiter, the asteroid belt preserves clues to how the planets — and Earth itself — were made.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) currently recognizes five dwarf planets in our solar system, though there are likely many more. The most famous of the bunch is Pluto, way out beyond the ...

Between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter lies a ring-shaped region called the asteroid belt, home to the vast majority of our solar system’s space rocks. The asteroid belt is as old as the solar system ...

They're calling them "planetary embryos". When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. Scientists believe that two asteroids might be ...

The asteroid belt, a ring of rubble between Mars and Jupiter, has sometimes been written off as discarded leftovers from the solar system's start. But new research published in the journal Nature ...

Millions of asteroids, not a planet, exist in the asteroid belt. The asteroid belt's total mass is only a small fraction of the Moon's mass. Meteorite analysis suggests the asteroids didn't originate ...

An artist's illustration shows the James Webb Space Telescope peering out into the solar system toward the asteroid belt. Ella Maru and Julien de Wit Every few years, an asteroid that’s about the size ...

A hidden ocean on dwarf planet Ceres may have churned up some of the ingredients for life relatively recently. The largest object in our Solar System’s asteroid belt, dwarf planet Ceres, hides small ...

Two rare cosmic collisions around the young star Fomalhaut were caught by space telescopes, offering new clues about how planets form.

Observations of 1 Ceres, the largest known asteroid, have revealed that the object may be a “mini planet,” and may contain large amounts of pure water ice beneath its surface. The observations by NASA ...

The giant planets weren't always where we find them today. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune formed in a more compact configuration and later underwent a violent reshuffling that scattered them to ...