This artist’s concept depicts one of the solar system’s inner planets slamming into Earth after being nudged on a collision course by a passing star. Such a world-shattering cataclysm is extremely ...

An object eight times the mass of Jupiter may have swooped around the sun, coming superclose to Mars' present-day orbit before shoving four of the solar system's planets onto a different course. When ...

All of our solar system’s planets are lining up in the night sky at once this week. This extraordinary celestial event will see the sky scattered with seven visible planets in what is known as a great ...

Stars passing close to the sun could cause planets to collide, including with Earth, or even be ejected as rogue planets, new simulations show. By Katherine Kornei If our species manages to hang on ...

Our solar system is a smashing success. A new study suggests that from its earliest period — even before the last of its nebular gas had been consumed — Earth’s solar system and its planets looked ...

The formation of our solar system from a singular nebula raises an intriguing question: why did each planet develop with a ...

This story is part of Short Wave's series Space Camp about all the weird, wonderful things happening in the universe. Check out the rest of the series. If you were born in the last century you might ...

Lucas Brefka receives funding from a NASA Exoplanet Research Program grant. Christopher Palma does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would ...

The search for an unknown planet in our solar system has inspired astronomers for more than a century. Now, a recent study suggests a potential new candidate, which the paper’s authors have dubbed ...

There are 8 planets in our solar system. The planets orbit the Sun in elliptical trajectories, and they are all different in size, composition, temperature, and characteristics. The planets can be ...

Theorbits of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune may have been altered by the fly-by of an enormous object from deep space, billions of years ago. According to a pre-print research paper, which is yet ...

This article was originally featured on The Conversation. Are planets in the solar system that are closer to the Sun older than the ones further away? – Gavriel, age 10, Paducah, Kentucky A cloud of ...