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These ice worlds aren't dead.
In our solar system's proverbial "no man's land," a deep space realm beyond the planets, scientists detected unexpected activity.
This remote area, inhabited by ice-clad worlds like Pluto (a dwarf planet), is called the Kuiper Belt, a donut-shaped region surrounding much of our solar system. It's a relatively little known place, but millions of frozen, "dead" objects are thought to orbit there. Now, astronomers pointed the powerful James Webb Space Telescope at some of these icy objects, and found evidence that they're not so dead after all.
"We see some interesting signs of hot times in cool places," Christopher Glein, a scientist at the Southwest Research Institute who researches icy worlds, said in a statement.
Glein, who previously conducted research into Saturn's geyser-shooting moon, Enceladus, led this new investigation into the Kuiper Belt objects, which was published in the planetary science journal Icarus.
mashable.com
In our solar system's proverbial "no man's land," a deep space realm beyond the planets, scientists detected unexpected activity.
This remote area, inhabited by ice-clad worlds like Pluto (a dwarf planet), is called the Kuiper Belt, a donut-shaped region surrounding much of our solar system. It's a relatively little known place, but millions of frozen, "dead" objects are thought to orbit there. Now, astronomers pointed the powerful James Webb Space Telescope at some of these icy objects, and found evidence that they're not so dead after all.
"We see some interesting signs of hot times in cool places," Christopher Glein, a scientist at the Southwest Research Institute who researches icy worlds, said in a statement.
Glein, who previously conducted research into Saturn's geyser-shooting moon, Enceladus, led this new investigation into the Kuiper Belt objects, which was published in the planetary science journal Icarus.
Webb telescope makes unexpected find in outskirts of our solar system
These ice worlds aren't dead.
mashable.com
