In our solar system, everything seems to be in order: The smaller rocky planets, such as Venus, Earth or Mars, orbit relatively close to our star. The large gas and ice giants, such as Jupiter, Saturn ...

Across the galaxy, astronomers now see that planetary systems fall into four broad classes, and our own solar system, part of the rare Ordered group, is only one of them. At the same time, discoveries ...

Scientists have discovered a bizarre planetary system where a rocky world orbits farther out than giant gas planets, defying long-standing theories of planet formation. The finding hints that some ...

Washington DC — New theoretical work shows that gas-giant planet formation can occur around binary stars in much the same way that it occurs around single stars like the Sun. The work is presented ...

Artist impression of the four classes of planetary system architecture. A new architecture framework allows researchers to study an entire planetary system at the systems level. If the small planets ...

Astronomers have long been aware that planetary systems are not necessarily structured like our solar system. Researchers have now shown that there are in fact four types of planetary systems. In our ...

NASA’s Kepler Mission, launched in 2009, revolutionized the field of exoplanet science. It provided a vast amount of information about planets orbiting stars other than the Sun and the planetary ...