When it comes to explaining how planets are formed, the protoplanetary hypothesis is the most widely accepted explanation. In simple terms, the donut-shaped disc of dust and gas around a star forms ...

(CNN) — Astronomers are questioning the theories of planet formation after discovering an exoplanet that technically shouldn’t exist. The planet, about the mass of Neptune and more than 13 times as ...

Billions of years ago, so the theory goes, something around the size of Mars smacked into Earth, spewing a whole bunch of dirt into space that eventually coalesced to form the Moon. This is called the ...

A recent study published in Science examines exoplanet LHS 3154b that orbits its parent star in just 3.7 days but is 13.2 times as massive as the Earth with the star being nine times less than our Sun ...

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) found a young star surrounded by an astonishing mass of gas. The star, called 49 Ceti, is 40 million years old and ...

The odd atmosphere of a fledgling exoplanet is causing astronomers to question leading theories of how planets form. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

A pair of NASA spacecraft detected tiny variations in the Moon's gravitational pull, which may be the result of a dense layer sinking to the bottom. Reading time 2 minutes During its early years of ...

A groundbreaking study led by astrophysicists at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) discovered that young planets are not the perfect spheres the scientific community previously considered.

Astronomers have discovered an extrasolar planet with the largest core of any known planet. The discovery is especially exciting to planet formation theorists, because it provides extremely strong ...