New studies offer a clearer picture of how the outer solar system formed and evolved based on analyses of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) and centaurs. The findings reveal the distribution of ices in ...

Tiny grains from asteroid Ryugu are revealing clues to the magnetic forces that shaped the far reaches of the solar system over 4.6 billion years ago. The findings suggest the distal solar system ...

Most of our knowledge about the Solar System’s formation and evolution comes from the study of extraterrestrial rock samples called chondritic meteorites. These rocks, which are fragments of asteroids ...

Comets — those small, icy objects orbiting the sun — act like floating time capsules, offering a window into the early days of our solar system's formation and holding clues about the origins of life ...

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 collapsing gas created our Sun, the first thing to form in ...

Mercury has long baffled astronomers because it defies much of what we know about planet formation. A new space mission ...

Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, may have been responsible for a mysterious age gap in the early solar system's planet building blocks. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Tanya ...

A small, inconspicuous meteorite may be about to change our understanding of how and when our solar system formed. Tiny shavings from the meteorite Northwest Africa 12264 are challenging the long-held ...

'We're showing that, everywhere we look now, there was some sort of magnetic field that was responsible for bringing mass to where the sun and planets were forming.' When you purchase through links on ...

The Sun's formation caused temperature differences in the surrounding disk of gas and dust. Inner, hotter regions formed rocky planets from less volatile elements. Outer, colder regions allowed ...

Astronomers have witnessed the creation of a solar system for the first time. Data captured by the ALMA telescope in Chile and the James Webb Space Telescope showed planets forming around a star in ...

The workings of our solar system are roughly the same now as they have been for millions of years. Moons circle their planets, the planets circle the sun, the sun’s magnetic fields and sunspots wax ...