How our planets were formedFormation of the solar system in two different planetary populations: the inner rocky planets formed earlier than the outer gas and ice giants. (Illustration: Mark A ...

Astronomers using ALMA have discovered that planet-forming discs are not flat and serene but subtly warped, reshaping our ...

ALIEN SOLAR SYSTEM. How would our solar system appear from afar? This artist’s view reveals dust and debris left from a disk of material that formed planets when the solar system was young.

Two of the most mysterious planets in our solar system are Uranus and Neptune. These planets are also known as ice giants, due to their intermediate-mass and size which suggests an ice-rich ...

The largest celestial bodies in our solar system that still exist—massive asteroids and minor planets—are thought to be the last vestiges of this era of planetary formation.

Over four billion years ago, the solar system was a wild and dangerous place. Swirling clouds of dust and gas slowly turned ...

Our Solar System is full of mysteries, but if the inner planets are a puzzle, the boundary between the Solar System and interstellar space is a secondhand puzzle with half the pieces missing.

The solar system is 4.54 billion years old, based on rock dating. Gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn) likely formed first. Ice giants (Uranus and Neptune) probably formed next. Rocky planets formed ...

If you want to build a planet, you're going to have to get your hands dirty. That's the lesson from a recent paper, which outlines just how vital giant impacts are to the formation of planets.

Standard planet-formation models have been unable to reconstruct the distributions of the Solar System's small, rocky planets and asteroids in the same simulation. A new analysis suggests that it ...

Since the first discovery of planets beyond the solar system in 1995, more than 6,000 exoplanets have been identified. Many ...