Tiny time capsules beyond Neptune: Webb and Hubble read the solar system's leftovers

Out beyond Neptune drift the leftovers of the solar system's birth — small, icy worlds that have barely changed in billions of years. Using NASA's James Webb and Hubble space telescopes, astronomers catalogued 27 newly studied trans-Neptunian objects and found surprises: the smallest is only about 3 miles (5 kilometres) across, and the region holds far fewer such objects than planet-formation models predicted. Lead author Marielle Eduardo, a PhD candidate at the University of Victoria, and colleagues published the census in The Astronomical Journal. Each of these frozen scraps is a sample of the material that built the planets — the solar system's own archive, still being read.