EVANSTON, Ill. — Except for the fact that we call it home, for centuries astronomers didn’t have any particular reason to believe that our solar system was anything special in the universe. But, ...

In the distant future—about six billion or seven billion years hence—the sun will start to die, swelling up into a bloated red giant. In a span of several hundred million years it will blow away its ...

An object eight times the mass of Jupiter may have swooped around the sun, coming superclose to Mars' present-day orbit before shoving four of the solar system's planets onto a different course. When ...

Why it's so special: This iconic montage features images of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune captured between 2014 and 2024 as part of the Hubble Space Telescope's Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy ...

Planets orbiting dead stars known as white dwarfs might be able to remain habitable thanks to general relativity subtly altering their motion. When stars like our sun run out of fuel, they expand and ...

A quest for life in the cosmos has given astronomer and astrobiologist Dr. Aomawa Shields new perspective on a meaningful life on Earth. The following is an excerpt from Life on Other Planets: A ...