Gas giants are massive worlds made mostly of hydrogen and helium. They lack solid surfaces, and in our solar system, Jupiter ...

Since the 1990s, scientists have discovered approximately 6,100 planets outside our solar system, called exoplanets.

Scientists suggest that huge reserves of hydrogen inside the Earth may have been key in the formation of water.

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.

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 ...

We know that our Solar System is not the blueprint for all planetary systems out there. There are gas giant planets orbiting ...

A young star called V1298 Tau is giving astronomers a front-row seat to the birth of the galaxy’s most common planets. Four massive but extremely low-density worlds orbiting the star appear to be ...

The wonders of life on Earth are endless, but all that may never have come to pass were it not for the planet having the perfect amount of oxygen at birth.

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 ...

New research from ETH Zurich challenges the long-held “follow the water” rule in the search for extraterrestrial life.

SHOCKED astronomers have spotted a “rogue” planet that defies historic theories. A unique “inside out” planetary system ...

General relativity helps explain the lack of planets around tight binary stars by driving orbital resonances that eject or destroy close-in worlds. This process naturally creates a “desert” of ...