In the Star Wars movies fictional planets are covered with forests, oceans, deserts, and volcanoes. But new models from a team of MIT, NASA, and Carnegie scientists begin to describe an even wider ...

The search for life beyond Earth is a key driver of modern astronomy and planetary science. The U.S. is building multiple major telescopes and planetary probes to advance this search. However, the ...

Spectacular clouds swirl across the surface of Jupiter. These clouds contain water, just like Earth's, but are much denser on ...

Finding planets that could potentially be home to life isn’t very easy, but researchers from Switzerland have created an AI model that has the potential to make it much more practical. The team wrote ...

At extreme pressures and temperatures, water becomes superionic — a solid that behaves partly like a liquid and conducts electricity. This unusual form is believed to shape the magnetic fields of ...

One of the most notable properties of the giant planets in our solar system—Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune—are the extreme winds observed around their equators. While some of these planets have ...

An international research team has discovered a new planet so young that it has yet to emerge from the womb of matter where it is forming. This is the youngest protoplanet discovered to date. It’s ...

For the first time since 2008, two new planets are being added to one of northern Maine's most famous — and scientifically accurate — roadside attractions. Dwarf planets Haumea and Makemake are the ...

Astronomers have found over 5,000 exoplanets, and now scientists think these distant worlds could unlock one of the universe’s greatest mysteries: dark matter. A new study suggests that Jupiter-like ...