At the right point of the orbit and stellar cycle, the star’s chromosphere brightens.

A newly discovered object orbiting far beyond Neptune has its closest approach to the Sun pointed in the opposite direction from every other known body like it, weakening one of the central ...

The orbits of the planets around the sun have been the source for many a scientific debate. Their current orbital properties are well understood but the planetary orbits have evolved and changed since ...

Studying the orbits of thousands of exoplanets shows that large planets tend to have elliptical orbits, while smaller planets tend to have more circular orbits. This split coincides with several other ...

The Sun is an incandescent but benevolent dictator. For billions of years, it’s kept our star system well organized through the influence of its powerful gravity. All the planets revolve around it on ...

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 ...

The giant planets weren't always where we find them today. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune formed in a more compact configuration and later underwent a violent reshuffling that scattered them to ...

Scientists may have discovered a dwarf planet far beyond Neptune — an unearthing that may disprove a longstanding theory about the possibility of a giant ninth planet. The dwarf planet's existence ...

In 2015, NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope identified one of the most Earth like planets ever discovered, Kepler 452b. It orbits ...