New high-contrast images from SPHERE show a stunning variety of debris disks shaped by collisions of tiny planet-building ...

A fascinating glimpse into how a solar system like our own is born has been revealed with the detection of planet-forming "pebbles" around two young stars. Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest ...

When I was a kid, there were nine planets. Now we know of thousands! But that includes exoplanets, alien worlds that orbit alien suns. Only eight planets call our solar system home. Or there might ...

About 4.6 billion years ago, a celestial cloud collapsed, paving the way for our solar system to form. Then, a nebula with strong gravitational pull took shape, kick-starting the birth of the sun. But ...

Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, was 2 to 2.5 times bigger in its earlier life, according to new research. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Tanya Oleksuik Jupiter, the ...

Jupiter is already the biggest planet by far in our solar system, but new research suggests it was somehow once even larger than it is now. Twice as large, in fact. To put that into context, those ...

A planetary conjunction is an astronomical event in which at least two planets – sometimes more – appear to our vantage from Earth to be close together in the sky. Both Venus and Jupiter are making ...

An object eight times the mass of Jupiter may have swooped around the sun, coming superclose to Mars' present-day orbit before shoving four of the solar system's planets onto a different course. When ...

There’s a bit of a paradox about our galaxy: it’s both jam-packed with stars and cavernously empty. The Milky Way is crowded in the sense that it holds hundreds of billions of stars, as well as ...