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

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

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

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 ...

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 ...

This video is an artistic representation of a newly discovered system, LHS 3154, which contains a planet far more massive for its sun than current models would predict. UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – 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.

The discovery of a planet that is far too massive for its sun is calling into question what was previously understood about the formation of planets and their solar systems. The discovery of a planet ...

Look up at the night sky and among the stars you might see a few brighter dots — the planets in our solar system. What you won’t see, though, are the most common kinds of planets in the Milky Way: ...