This artist’s concept depicts one of the solar system’s inner planets slamming into Earth after being nudged on a collision course by a passing star. Such a world-shattering cataclysm is extremely ...

Illustration comparing the planets of the Solar System and the Sun on the same scale. The planets are shown to scale relative to each other but their distances are not. From left to right the bodies ...

Are planets in the solar system that are closer to the Sun older than the ones further away? – Gavriel, age 10, Paducah, Kentucky A cloud of collapsing gas created our Sun, the first thing to form in ...

Across the Milky Way and beyond, planetary systems appear to fall into a few recurring blueprints, and recent exoplanet ...

The workings of our solar system are roughly the same now as they have been for millions of years. Moons circle their planets, the planets circle the sun, the sun’s magnetic fields and sunspots wax ...

An object eight times the mass of Jupiter may have swooped around the sun, coming superclose to Mars' present-day orbit before shoving four of the solar system's planets onto a different course. When ...

Tiny grains from asteroid Ryugu are revealing clues to the magnetic forces that shaped the far reaches of the solar system over 4.6 billion years ago. The findings suggest the distal solar system ...

Earth may have a moon today because a nearby neighbor once crashed into us, a new analysis of Apollo samples and terrestrial rocks reveals. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an ...

A tiny meteorite is rewriting what scientists thought they knew about the origins of our solar system. New evidence found in shavings from a meteorite known as Northwest Africa 12264 — a 50-gram (1.8 ...

This article was originally featured on The Conversation. Are planets in the solar system that are closer to the Sun older than the ones further away? – Gavriel, age 10, Paducah, Kentucky A cloud of ...

Lucas Brefka receives funding from a NASA Exoplanet Research Program grant. Christopher Palma does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would ...