Floating around at the edge of the Solar System are leftovers from its formation. This is the Kuiper Belt, which is composed ...

Astronomers Amazed to Identify ‘Cosmic Triplets’ Hiding in Plain Sight Beyond Neptune For decades, astronomers have mopped ...

New research suggests that a binary pair of Kuiper Belt objects, known as the Altjira system, is actually made up of three separate bodies orbiting one another in a complex triad. This rare orbital ...

One object in the Kuiper Belt, known as Altjira, is the the focus of this study. Over the last 10 years, the Hubble Space Telescope has taken pictures of Altjira and a 2011 study found that it appears ...

Astronomers have discovered what they believed to be a rare stable trio of gravitationally bound Kuiper Belt objects, ...

An illustration of the 148780 Altjira system of two or maybe three asteroids. Inset: the Hubble Space Telescope | Credit: NASA, ESA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI) If it is confirmed as a triplet, ...

148780 Altjira is around 6 billion kilometers away from Earth and consists of three Kuiper Belt Objects (KBO), each around 200 kilometers in size. Altjira was discovered with the Hubble Space ...

M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. If confirmed as the second such three-body system found in the region, the 148780 Altjira system suggests there could be similar triples waiting to be discovered ...

If it is confirmed as a triplet, the system — designated 148780 Altjira — could offer scientists a chance to improve their models of how three gravitationally bound bodies move through space ...

This artist's concept depicts one of the possible scenarios for the 148780 Altjira system in the solar system's Kuiper Belt. It is likely a hierarchical triple formation, in which two very close ...

M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. If confirmed as the second such three-body system found in the region, the 148780 Altjira system suggests there could be similar triples waiting to be discovered ...