Both asteroids and comets are rocky or icy solar system objects ranging in size from less than a half a mile to many hundreds of miles wide.

The Cassini spacecraft has discovered giant geysers on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The geysers jet out at a distance three times the size of the moon.

Two Canadian scientists from the University of British Columbia believe that some meteorites on Earth could have come from Mercury.

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has been gathering information on Saturn, its rings, and its moons.

The Kuiper Belt is an area of our solar system located beyond Neptune to about 100 astronomical units from the sun.

The dwarf planet Eris is located about 97 astronomical units from the sun, the most remote known body in the solar system. Astronomers at Caltech discovered Eris in 2005.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has officially named the Kuiper Belt objects formerly nicknamed “Xena” and known as 2003 UB313 and its moon nicknamed “Gabrielle”. Its new name is Eris, after the Greek goddess of discord and strife and the sister of Ares (God of War).

The 2006 International Astronomical Union (IAU) General Assembly has redefined the definitions of objects in our solar system and created a new classification based on new discoveries.

Planets and other large bodies in our solar system are defined into three categories.

Astronomers at the W.M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea in Hawaii have discovered a warm polar vortex at Saturn’s South Pole. A vortex is a persistent, large-scale weather pattern. It’s the first warm polar vortex discovered in the solar system.

Mercury can be seen at the very end of the month for about a half hour after sunset in the constellation Aquarius (the Water-Bearer). Mercury appears higher in the sky each evening and will be easier to see in March when it’s higher and brighter in the predawn sky. Mercury looks like a small white star.