Short-lived radioisotopes such as aluminum-26 influenced early solar system heat, water retention and the formation of Earth-like rocky planets, according to meteorite analyses and models.

Scientists from MIT and their colleagues have estimated the lifetime of the solar nebula — a key stage during which much of the solar system evolution took shape. This new estimate suggests that the ...

New work from Carnegie’s Alan Boss and Sandra Keiser provides surprising new details about the trigger that may have started the earliest phases of planet formation in our solar system. It is ...

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

Scientists were able to see the moment when planets began to form around a star. Astronomers have witnessed the birth of a solar system beyond our own for the first time. An international team of ...

The discovery of a planet that is far too massive for its sun is calling into question what was previously understood about the formation of planets and their solar systems. The discovery of a planet ...

This video is an artistic representation of a newly discovered system, LHS 3154, which contains a planet far more massive for its sun than current models would predict. UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The ...

Illustration comparing the planets of the Solar System and the Sun on the same scale. The planets are shown to scale relative to each other but their distances are not. From left to right the bodies ...

Observations of water in the disk forming around protostar V883 Ori have unlocked clues about the formation of comets and planetesimals in our own solar system. Scientists studying a nearby protostar ...

Super-Earths and sub-Neptunes, planets with sizes between Earth and Neptune, constitute approximately one-third of known exoplanets but are absent in our solar system. Their prevalence elsewhere and ...