Thirty years ago this week, two Swiss astronomers announced that they had spotted the first known planet orbiting a Sun-like star. The Nobel-winning discovery, later published in the pages of Nature, ...

A new model from a Florida Tech professor suggests how planets are formed may determine if they have water. The study proposes that some planets may be "born dry" because they lack a way to attract ...

Step outside tonight in the early evening, when Sagittarius lies above the southwestern horizon. Globular cluster M22 shines brightly at magnitude 5.1, readily observable with binoculars or any size ...

"It was just a matter of time before we found them." Thirty years ago, on Oct. 6, 1995, the very first exoplanet to be discovered around a sun-like star was revealed. Called 51 Pegasi b, it was a ...

In principle, discovering new exoplanets is pretty easy. Simply measure the brightness of a star over time, and when a planet passes in front of the star, the brightness will dim slightly. The more ...

Space scientists look back on 30 years of exoplanet discoveries — from rows of massive ‘super-Earths‘ to worlds with perfectly synchronized orbits. It was also the start of a whirlwind of discovery.

Scientists have gotten a never-before-seen look at an area around a large exoplanet 625 light-years away where moons like the one orbiting Earth could potentially form. Using data from NASA’s James ...

Many of the most interesting bodies in our Solar System aren’t planets, but the moons that orbit them. They have active volcanoes, hydrocarbon oceans, geysers, and moon-wide oceans buried under icy ...

Scientists have gotten a never-before-seen look at an area around a large exoplanet 625 light-years away where moons like the one orbiting Earth could potentially form. "Moons likely outnumber planets ...

The team of astronomers behind the find suggested it could help us better understand planet and moon formation in our solar system and beyond the Milky Way. The team was able to make the first-ever ...

With the discovery of ever more exoplanets—over 6,000 now—scientists, of course, want to know if they are habitable for life. (At least, life as we know it.) But assessing habitability is a difficult ...

What kinds of planet does a solar system cook up? It depends on the ingredients you throw in. Astronomers report that the planets that arise around a star can have a vast array of structures that ...