Some of the most promising places to look for extraterrestrials have remained, so far, mostly hidden from astronomers. Now a game-changing instrument called NIRPS (Near-Infrared Planet Searcher) is ...

A planet circling at a sharp 90-degree angle to the orbits of its two host stars has now been confirmed. This discovery challenges long-standing ideas about how planets form and orbit in the cosmos.

In the cold, dark outskirts of planetary systems far beyond the reach of the known planets, mysterious gas giants and planetary masses silently orbit their stars — sometimes thousands of astronomical ...

This is a brilliant question because the notion of an orbit is counterintuitive. We know that massive objects (really, any objects with mass) gravitationally attract other massive objects; Newton's ...

Astronomers are increasingly finding planets that do not simply circle their stars in neat, clockwork ellipses but instead trace out paths that look more like intricate choreography. The latest ...

In a discovery that's fit for a movie, Northwestern University astronomers have directly imaged a Tatooine-like exoplanet, orbiting two suns. While obtaining an image of a planet beyond our solar ...

Astronomers have captured the most dramatic view yet of a planet losing its atmosphere, watching the ultra-hot gas giant WASP ...

In theory, a planet may be able to orbit a binary star system in a figure of eight, but it may not be particularly stable, explain our readers ...

"Without Mars, Earth's orbit would be missing major climate cycles. What would humans and other animals even look like if ...

When you see art of our solar system as the planet orbit the sun, you may notice that Earth's orbit has a tilt. It is not a perfect circle. What's more, Earth is not the only planet that displays such ...