Astronomers have found thousands of exoplanets around single stars, but few around binary stars—even though both types of stars are equally common. Physicists can now explain the dearth. Of the more ...

Planets orbiting dead stars known as white dwarfs might be able to remain habitable thanks to general relativity subtly altering their motion. When stars like our sun run out of fuel, they expand and ...

The number of confirmed planets outside of our solar system—known as exoplanets—has risen to 6,000, NASA has said. There is huge variety across these distant worlds, the space agency says, with ...

A step-by-step explanation for why planets that orbit a double star eventually enter an unstable orbit and disappear from the system. Of the more than 4,500 stars known to have planets, one puzzling ...

Scientists search for exoplanets and signs of life in space because understanding whether life exists beyond Earth is one of the most important goals in modern science. In space exploration, ...

An exoplanetary system about 116 light-years from Earth could flip the script on how planets form, according to researchers who discovered it using telescopes from NASA and the European Space Agency, ...

On October 6 1995, at a scientific meeting in Florence, Italy, two Swiss astronomers made an announcement that would transform our understanding of the universe beyond our solar system. Michel Mayor ...

Over the past 250 years, the number of "planets" in our solar system has ranged from six to nine — and, briefly, even 11 — depending on what astronomers knew at the time and how they defined a planet.