The textbook picture of how planets form—serene, flat disks of cosmic dust—has just received a significant cosmic twist. Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest sci-tech news updates. New research, ...

Hot Jupiters were once cosmic oddities, but unraveling how they moved so close to their stars has remained a stubborn mystery. Scientists have long debated whether these giants were violently flung ...

Astronomers have discovered an extrasolar planet with the largest core of any known planet. The discovery is especially exciting to planet formation theorists, because it provides extremely strong ...

In the early days of our solar system, when the Sun was still young and the planets were barely formed, Jupiter wasn’t the gas giant we see today. In fact, today’s Jupiter would look like a midget in ...

How did a planet this big form around a star this small? An international team of astronomers, including researchers from the University of Liège and collaborators in UK, Chile, the USA, and Europe, ...

A planet circling at a sharp 90-degree angle to the orbits of its two host stars has now been confirmed. This discovery challenges long-standing ideas about how planets form and orbit in the cosmos.

There are a couple of ways that scientists can date planets, so which planets formed first in our solar system? When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s ...