With this new survey, astronomers have gained a peek inside a stage of exoplanet system formation they have yet to fully ...

Interstellar comets are the original cosmic explorers, and by studying their metallic whispers, we are learning the secrets ...

The universe is full of wonders, but some worlds are downright deadly. From searing heat to violent storms, these planets make Earth look like a paradise. Many of them challenge everything we know ...

When the Sun runs out of hydrogen fuel and expands into a red giant, it will eventually encompass the innermost planets of the solar system, out to about Earth’s orbit. Being closer to our enlarged ...

EVANSTON, Ill. — Except for the fact that we call it home, for centuries astronomers didn’t have any particular reason to believe that our solar system was anything special in the universe. But, ...

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 ...

Planets orbiting dead stars known as white dwarfs might be able to remain habitable thanks to general relativity subtly altering their motion. When stars like our sun run out of fuel, they expand and ...

In the distant future—about six billion or seven billion years hence—the sun will start to die, swelling up into a bloated red giant. In a span of several hundred million years it will blow away its ...

The total solar eclipse on Aug. 21, 2017, as photographed from Madras, Oregon. The black circle in the middle is the Moon. Surrounding it are white streams of light belonging to the Sun’s outer ...