Astronomers are closing in on one of the most tantalizing possibilities in planetary science, evidence that a previously ...

This artist’s concept depicts one of the solar system’s inner planets slamming into Earth after being nudged on a collision course by a passing star. Such a world-shattering cataclysm is extremely ...

The giant planets weren't always where we find them today. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune formed in a more compact configuration and later underwent a violent reshuffling that scattered them to ...

Astronomers across the globe constantly monitor space for glimpses of new objects beyond the solar system. In fact, NASA is tracking a rare planet unlike anything in our solar system — Enaiposha (GJ ...

The search for an unknown planet in our solar system has inspired astronomers for more than a century. Now, a recent study suggests a potential new candidate, which the paper’s authors have dubbed ...

The official number of exoplanets—planets outside our solar system—tracked by NASA has reached 6,000. Confirmed planets are added to the count on a rolling basis by scientists from around the world, ...

Just two decades after astronomers discovered the first exoplanet, NASA has confirmed the existence of 6,000 alien worlds. The total will rise even quicker as next-generation telescopes take flight.

There’s a bit of a paradox about our galaxy: it’s both jam-packed with stars and cavernously empty. The Milky Way is crowded in the sense that it holds hundreds of billions of stars, as well as ...

A tiny meteorite is rewriting what scientists thought they knew about the origins of our solar system. New evidence found in shavings from a meteorite known as Northwest Africa 12264 — a 50-gram (1.8 ...

Our solar system is a smashing success. A new study suggests that from its earliest period — even before the last of its nebular gas had been consumed — Earth’s solar system and its planets looked ...