Southwest Research Institute scientists propose a new model for the formation of compact exoplanetary systems that contain multiple rocky planets in tight orbits around their star. In this model, ...

Earth’s history has been punctuated by at least five major ice ages. Some of these frigid periods of prolonged global cooling saw much of our planet locked in ice and snow for 100 million years. It ...

Planets are born from the rotating disk of gas and dust that surrounds a star in its youth. While it is commonly accepted ...

OK, first, let’s get the name out of the way. Scientists have cataloged this exoplanet as PSR J2322-2650 b. It’s called that because it orbits a pulsar (a rapidly rotating neutron star) designated PSR ...

Studying the orbits of thousands of exoplanets shows that large planets tend to have elliptical orbits, while smaller planets tend to have more circular orbits. This split coincides with several other ...

Is it a two-for-sun deal. Astronomers were blown away after discovering a bizarre exoplanet that orbits twin stars closer than any ever seen before in a binary star system, per a starry study ...

Planet hunters have grown used to strange worlds, but a handful of discoveries now point to something even more radical: giant planets that loop around their stars on orbits so skewed they almost defy ...

Astronomers have uncovered a distant planetary system that flips a long-standing rule of planet formation on its head. Around the small red dwarf star LHS 1903, scientists expected to find rocky ...

Hot Jupiters, the blisteringly close cousins of our own Jupiter, were once treated as cosmic misfits. Now their orbital patterns are turning into a kind of forensic record, revealing how these giants ...