A planetary system 116 light-years from Earth has a peculiar pattern. It could flip the script on how planets form, scientists say.

Active small bodies—including comets, active asteroids, icy minor planets, and transitional objects—occupy a unique position in planetary science. As ...

A group of astronomers has found a solar system 116 light-years from Earth that seems to challenge current theories about how ...

New work from Carnegie’s Alan Boss and Sandra Keiser provides surprising new details about the trigger that may have started the earliest phases of planet formation in our solar system. It is ...

Astronomers have found a rocky planet where it should not exist, orbiting far from a cool red star. Could this strange “inside out” system rewrite how we think planets form?

Scientists from MIT and their colleagues have estimated the lifetime of the solar nebula — a key stage during which much of the solar system evolution took shape. This new estimate suggests that the ...

A newly studied solar system breaks the usual planet pattern, raising fresh questions about how rocky and gas planets form.

Astronomers have found a distant world that challenges planetary formation theory, with a rocky planet where gas giants should be.

In A Nutshell Arrokoth, a snowman-shaped object billions of miles from Earth, is one of the oldest and least-disturbed relics of the early solar system Scientists have long debated whether its two ...

For life to develop on a planet, certain chemical elements are needed in sufficient quantities. Phosphorus and nitrogen are essential. Phosphorus is vital for the formation of DNA and RNA, which store ...