In 2008, astronomers with the SuperWASP survey spotted WASP-12b as it transited in front of its star. At the time, it was part of a new class of exoplanets ("hot Jupiters") discovered a little more than a decade before. However, ...
A ring of icy rocks orbiting our sun just beyond Neptune may give us a glimpse of how Neptune—and other objects in the outskirts of our solar system—were formed.
Using some of the largest telescopes in the world, including the Subaru Telescope, a team of astronomers discovered three new natural satellites orbiting the outermost planets in our solar system—one around Uranus and two ...
Astronomers have been on the hunt for a new kind of exoplanet in recent years—one especially suited for habitability. They're called Hycean worlds, and they're characterized by vast liquid water oceans and thick hydrogen-rich ...
A study recently submitted to The Astronomical Journal continues to search for the elusive Planet Nine (also called Planet X), which is a hypothetical planet that potentially orbits in the outer reaches of the solar system ...
A team co-led by Southwest Research Institute found evidence for hydrothermal or metamorphic activity within the icy dwarf planets Eris and Makemake, located in the Kuiper Belt. Methane detected on their surfaces has the ...
A study led by Western astrobiologist Catherine Neish shows the subsurface ocean of Titan—the largest moon of Saturn—is most likely a non-habitable environment, meaning any hope of finding life in the icy world is dead ...
Stars that pass by our solar system have altered the long-term orbital evolution of planets, including Earth, and, by extension, modified our climate.
A multi-institutional team of astronomers, Earth scientists and planetary physicists has found evidence, via data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), that some hycean exoplanets may have molten surfaces rather than ...
Ordinarily, planets in evolved planetary systems, such as the solar system, follow stable orbits around their central star. However, many indications suggest that some planets might depart from their birthplaces during their ...
