What can rocky planets orbiting in the outer parts of a solar system teach scientists about planetary formation and evolution? This is what a recent study published in Science hopes to address as a ...

The outer reaches of our Solar System continue to reveal a complex dynamical environment where the interplay of gravitational forces shapes the orbits of a myriad of distant bodies. Research in this ...

A group of astronomers has found a solar system 116 light-years from Earth that seems to challenge current theories about how ...

After studying thousands of computer simulations of the solar system, researchers at Rice University and the Planetary Science Institute think there’s a 40% chance an elusive “Planet Nine” or “Planet ...

Astronomers have discovered a new member of a rare and mysterious class of solar system objects known as sednoids — a subset of extreme trans-Neptunian objects (ETNOs) with exceptionally distant, ...

An international team of astronomers has discovered a distant planetary system that challenges long-standing theories of how planets form. Across our galaxy, astronomers routinely observe a ...

Hardy bacteria could survive the trip from one planet to another, hidden among the debris from an asteroid impact, a new study suggests, providing possible evidence for a theory that the seeds of life ...

Astronomers surveying the outer solar system have revealed that a rare object far beyond Neptune is moving in sync with the eighth planet in an unexpected way. Called 2020 VN40 and first discovered in ...

Ammonite was discovered using the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii, with follow-up confirmation from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. Its orbit and size officially qualify it as a distant dwarf planet.

Astronomers are closing in on one of the most tantalizing possibilities in planetary science, evidence that a previously unknown world may be lurking in the outer reaches of the solar system. The ...