Southwest Research Institute scientists propose a new model for the formation of compact exoplanetary systems that contain multiple rocky planets in tight orbits around their star. In this model, ...

Astronomers have uncovered a distant planetary system that flips a long-standing rule of planet formation on its head. Around the small red dwarf star LHS 1903, scientists expected to find rocky ...

Astronomers have made a groundbreaking discovery of three Earth-sized planets orbiting within a compact binary star system. This rare configuration, where planets circle two stars simultaneously, ...

General relativity helps explain the lack of planets around tight binary stars by driving orbital resonances that eject or destroy close-in worlds. This process naturally creates a “desert” of ...

OK, first, let’s get the name out of the way. Scientists have cataloged this exoplanet as PSR J2322-2650 b. It’s called that because it orbits a pulsar (a rapidly rotating neutron star) designated PSR ...

The shape of a planet's orbit is one of its fundamental properties, along with its size and distance from its host star. Earth has a nearly circular orbit, but some planets outside our solar system, ...

Is it a two-for-sun deal. Astronomers were blown away after discovering a bizarre exoplanet that orbits twin stars closer than any ever seen before in a binary star system, per a starry study ...

As planetary systems evolve, gravitational interactions between planets can fling some of them into eccentric elliptical orbits around the host star, or even out of the system altogether. Smaller ...

This illustration shows an exoplanet orbiting around two brown dwarfs –– objects bigger than gas-giant planets but too small to be proper stars. ESO/M. Kornmesser Astronomers have discovered a ...