Gas giants are massive worlds made mostly of hydrogen and helium. They lack solid surfaces, and in our solar system, Jupiter ...

Astronomers have uncovered a distant planetary system that flips a long-standing rule of planet formation on its head. Around the small red dwarf star LHS 1903, scientists expected to find rocky ...

A newly studied solar system breaks the usual planet pattern, raising fresh questions about how rocky and gas planets form.

Analysis of an ancient meteorite suggests that rocky planets both near and distant from the sun may have formed at the same ...

Gas giants are large planets mostly composed of helium and/or hydrogen. Although these planets have dense cores, they don't ...

Gas giants possibly developed slowly in the solar system. They developed cores layer by layer within a disk of ice and dust ...

A young star called V1298 Tau is giving astronomers a front-row seat to the birth of the galaxy’s most common planets. Four massive but extremely low-density worlds orbiting the star appear to be ...

Dr. Jane Huang's research on planet formation in harsh environments, particularly within the Sigma Orionis cluster, offers surprising insights into the universality of planet formation. In a recent ...

Scientists have identified a rocky outer planet in a system where a gas giant was expected. The discovery challenges ...

For life to develop on a planet, certain chemical elements are needed in sufficient quantities. Phosphorus and nitrogen are essential. Phosphorus is vital for the formation of DNA and RNA, which store ...

How are the most common types of planets made? This is what a recent study published in Nature hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated the intricate processes responsible for the most ...

General relativity helps explain the lack of planets around tight binary stars by driving orbital resonances that eject or destroy close-in worlds. This process naturally creates a “desert” of ...