When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. An illustration of confirmed dwarf planets and their moons. From left to right: Pluto (with ...
Even the best telescopes can’t see exoplanets. It’s all about watching for jiggly stars, blue shifts, and transits.
Astronomers have discovered the earliest seeds of rocky planets forming in the gas around a baby sun-like star, providing a precious peek into the dawn of our own solar system. It’s an unprecedented ...
On August 24, 2006, our solar system lost a planet. It wasn't by cataclysmic destruction, but rather by the vote of the International Astronomical Union, which declared that Pluto, considered the ...
The cold and remote planets originally earned their label of "ice giants" to contrast their interiors from those of Jupiter ...
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 ...
Still, science being science, we needed proof—and we got it in 1992, when two astronomers found two planets orbiting a pulsar ...
About 4.6 billion years ago, a celestial cloud collapsed, paving the way for our solar system to form. Then, a nebula with strong gravitational pull took shape, kick-starting the birth of the sun. But ...
Rocky planets like our Earth may be far more common than previously thought, according to new research published in the ...