Astronomers have found a planetary system that seems to have formed inside-out. While most systems, like our own, have rocky planets closest to their star and gaseous ones further out, the LHS 1903 ...

Astronomers have long been puzzled by the near-absence of planets orbiting close pairs of stars. New theoretical work shows that subtle relativistic effects can slowly drive such planets into extreme, ...

Rocky planets are typically found near their star, while gas giants form farther out — not the other way around. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

An exoplanetary system about 116 light-years from Earth could flip the script on how planets form, according to researchers who discovered it using telescopes from NASA and the European Space Agency, ...

Astronomers have long faced a strange contradiction: most stars are born in pairs, and most stars have planets, so logically, planets orbiting two stars at once should be common. However, in reality, ...

Astronomers may have discovered a new Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting a Sunlike star just 146 light-years away. Before you pack a suitcase, however, there’s a catch: even if the find is confirmed, the ...

Astronomers have found thousands of exoplanets around single stars, but few around binary stars—even though both types of stars are equally common. Physicists can now explain the dearth. Of the more ...

Scientists have finally worked out where the most common kinds of planets come from. That has made their origin somewhat mysterious. Until now, researchers have struggled to understand where these ...

Observations of a unique microlensing event have led to the discovery of a free-floating rogue planet drifting through the cosmos without a host star, according to an international research team. The ...

Scientists now have direct evidence that a planet — not just failed stars — can rove the galaxy after a violent expulsion from its orbit. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / R. Hurt illustration Astronomers ...

Nearly 10,000 light years away, a planet the size of Saturn is floating all on its own through empty space. In a stroke of luck, researchers were able to spot this strange, dark world using both ...

Roughly 1,000 light-years away from Earth, a gigantic disk of gas and dust is swirling around a young star and giving rise to new planets. Not only is it the largest planet-forming disk astronomers ...