Planets that orbit white dwarf stars should be too hot to host alien life, theories suggest. But a new study accounting for ...

Pluto is a bit of a loner. The dwarf planet is no longer considered a regular planet; it does not orbit on the same plane as the solar system's eight planets; and its orbit is both highly elliptical ...

In the hunt for extraterrestrial life, we usually look for planets orbiting sun-like stars and icy moons. But there is ...

Some habitable worlds orbiting dead stars could be kept alive for aeons thanks to a quirk of Einstein’s theory of gravity ...

Astronomers have uncovered a massive new trans-Neptunian object, 2017 OF201, lurking at the edge of our solar system. With an orbit stretching 25,000 years and a size that may qualify it as a dwarf ...

By combining the power of ground-based and space-based telescopes, astronomers have discovered a new brown dwarf—a type of ...

The Copernican Principle, named in honor of Nicolaus Copernicus (who proposed the heliocentric model of the universe), states that Earth and humans do not occupy a special or privileged place in the ...

For all the talk about life across the cosmos, Earth remains the only confirmed example. That single data point makes your ...

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have uncovered the remains of a frozen, Pluto-like world being devoured by a distant white dwarf star.

A new study has proposed the existence of Planet Y, an alternative Planet Nine candidate that is smaller and closer to Earth ...

New observations suggest that the dwarf planet Makemake is surrounded by faintly glowing methane gas. Scientists are unsure if the gas is contained within a wispy atmosphere or being ejected into ...

Our solar system is much like a trail of microcosmic breadcrumbs: Follow the molecular bits as far back as they go, and you'll learn a thing or two about where many of our planets and other celestial ...