A newly identified planet candidate, HD 137010 b, looks strikingly Earth-like in size and orbit — but it may be colder than Mars due to its dimmer star. If it has a thick enough atmosphere, though, ...

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

The similarities are astonishing. And yet... The post NASA Telescope Discovers Nearby Planet With Deep Similarities to Earth ...

Life on Earth may exist thanks to an incredible stroke of luck — a chemical sweet spot that most planets miss during their formation but ours managed to hit.

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

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 ...

The planets around a nearby star seem to be in the wrong order, hinting that they formed through a different mechanism than the familiar one by which most systems grow ...

Typically, from what astronomers have gathered thus far, star systems follow a tidy logic: small, rocky worlds huddle close to the warmth of their star, while massive gas giants bloat up in the colder ...

A newly identified Earth-sized exoplanet with a year-long orbit may lie near its star’s habitable zone, but extreme cold could limit its chances of hosting liquid water.

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 ...