ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI) – Have you ever wanted to name a planet? Now’s your chance to do the next-best thing; putting your name on one of our solar system’s moons! The SETI Institute is asking for the ...

Back in the 1980’s, a now-defunct magazine called Science Digest held a contest to name Planet X — the still-undiscovered world that astronomers believed might lie out beyond Pluto. One of the best ...

Planets, moons and other celestial bodies are named according to rules established by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Pluto did not have any rules for naming surface features because, ...

The International Astronomical Union has decided on the term plutoid as a name for dwarf planets like Pluto at a meeting of its Executive Committee in Oslo. Almost two years after the International ...

This morning at 9:00 am PT, the SETI Institute will announce the new names of Pluto’s smallest known moons. “Vulcan” and “Cerberus” were the public’s choices earlier this year, following a ...

Not much to name in our current view of Pluto (left). That will all change during the July flyby when New Horizons will image features down to 1 mile (1.6 km) across. Credit: NASA Here's your chance ...

The US state of Arizona has taken the unusual step of naming a state planet. Even more unusually, they have chosen Pluto – which is not a planet – as their representative in the solar system. A ...

For an astronomical body that circles the sun but is not officially a planet, Pluto has a lot going on, out there 4 billion miles from the sun where comets and other icy bodies roam. Among other ...

(Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated how far Pluto is from the sun. The correct number is 3.7 billion miles.) What was discovered in Flagstaff, Arizona, and killed off in Prague? If ...

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Samantha Lawler, Assistant professor, Astronomy, ...