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

CREDIT: ALMA(ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/M. McClure et al. Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Terms of ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. An award-winning reporter writing about stargazing and the night sky. An object has been discovered orbiting the sun far beyond ...

Our solar system is a smashing success. A new study suggests that from its earliest period — even before the last of its nebular gas had been consumed — Earth’s solar system and its planets looked ...

Federal funding is about to run out for 19 active space missions studying Earth’s climate, exploring the Solar System, and probing mysteries of the Universe. This year’s budget expires at the end of ...

Simulations reveal that Jupiter’s rapid growth disrupted the early solar system, creating rings where new planetesimals formed much later than expected. These late-forming bodies match the ages and ...

A newborn planetary system is forming around HOPS-315, a protostar (one that recently formed) that sits some 1,300 light-years away in the constellation Orion the Hunter. This star isn’t in the ...

The birth of a new solar system may have been caught on camera. About 1,400 light-years from Earth sits a young sunlike star surrounded by cooling gas and teensy silicate minerals. These mineral ...

Illustration comparing the planets of the Solar System and the Sun on the same scale. The planets are shown to scale relative to each other but their distances are not. From left to right the bodies ...