When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Artwork depicting how water, both regular and heavy, comes from giant molecular clouds and is ...

Astronomers have long believed that planetary systems follow a familiar blueprint. Small rocky planets ...

An international team of astronomers has discovered a distant planetary system that challenges long-standing theories of how ...

Astronomers studying a dim red dwarf star called LHS 1903 have found a four-planet system with an architecture that defies the standard rules of how rocky worlds take shape. The outermost planet in ...

A closer look at the planets around a star called LHS 1903 may just flip our understanding of how planetary systems form.

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

Artist impression of the planetary system with four planets,around a small red star,called LHS1903. Caption: Astronomers have long thought solar systems follow a simple pattern similar to our own: ...

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

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

Astronomers have found a distant world that challenges planetary formation theory, with a rocky planet where gas giants should be.