Astronomers witness first moments of planet formation as rock grains crystallize around distant star HOPS-315.

International astronomers have for the first time witnessed the birth of a planetary system beyond Earth's sun that could one ...

thanks to the way the star tilts toward Earth. They detected silicon monoxide gas as well as crystalline silicate minerals, the ingredients for what’s believed to be the first solid materials to form ...

The astronomers observed hot minerals just beginning to solidify – the first specks of planet-forming material, the astronomers said. A gaseous disk surrounding the young star is the first stages of ...

A pair of planetary scientists simulated how our solar system might have evolved if it had a super-Earth orbiting where the asteroid belt is today. The results are enough to make you grateful that ...

The planets form a tightly packed, close-in system, having short orbital periods of between two and seven Earth days (for comparison, our Sun’s closest planet, Mercury, orbits in 88 days).

For now, the outer reaches of our 4.6 billion-year-old solar system continue to be shrouded in mystery, with the classification of objects changing as scientists gain a new understanding of them ...