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 formation of the solar system is a challenging puzzle for modern astronomy and a terrific tale of extreme forces operating over immense timescales. Let's dig in.

They noted that any larger asteroid formed very early on in the solar system would have been heated to high temperatures by the decay of large amounts of aluminum-26, a radioactive nuclide ...

The solar system as we know it began life as a vast, swirling cloud of gas and dust, twisting through the universe without direction or form. About 4.6 billion years ago, this gigantic cloud was ...

How Did the Solar System Form? The tale of our sun may begin with another star: a predecessor whose fiery death brought about the birth of our solar system.

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 ...

Though Pluto has formally been considered a dwarf planet for almost two decades, it still has many lessons left for planetary scientists — including hints about how the solar system formed.

Tiny shavings from a single meteorite could completely overturn our understanding of how the solar system formed, after the space rock turned out to be older than expected.

Radioisotope dating of meteorites suggests that planets formed in the Solar System over shorter timescales than had been thought. There are consequences for how the Moon formed, but is this the ...

One of the oldest meteorites ever discovered, the 4.6 billion-year-old Erg Chech 002, could reveal vital information about the formation of the solar system.

Despite the many impressive discoveries humans have made about the universe, scientists are still unsure about the birth story of our solar system. Scientists with the University of Chicago have laid ...