Still, science being science, we needed proof—and we got it in 1992, when two astronomers found two planets orbiting a pulsar ...

Astronomers studying extreme planetary systems have identified worlds so massive that they rival the smallest stars in size.

Our search for exoplanets is focused on Milky Way stars. It's been successful, with more than 6,000 detected so far. Scientists are even beginning to move beyond mere detections, and working on ...

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) decided several years ago that they needed to come up with a definition for a planet (for use with the objects in our Solar System). The IAU has various ...

More than 50 times further from the Sun than Earth, the tiny dwarf planet Makemake is one of the last places you'd expect to find an intact gaseous atmosphere. Not only is it incredibly cold, being ...

"It shows that Makemake is not an inactive remnant of the outer solar system, but a dynamic body where methane ice is still evolving." Scientists have detected methane gas on the dwarf planet Makemake ...

WASHINGTON, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have observed a white dwarf - a highly compact stellar ember - that appears to have gobbled up an icy world akin to the ...

More than 2 billion kilometers farther from the sun than Pluto, a frigid world named Makemake sports the most distant gas ever seen in our solar system, new observations reveal. “By surprise, we found ...

Astronomers have detected the chemical fingerprint of a frozen, water-rich planetary fragment being devoured by a white dwarf star, offering the clearest evidence yet that icy, life-delivering objects ...

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, scientists have detected gas on the distant dwarf planet, Makemake. Credit: NASA / ESA / Southwest Research Institute / A. Parker illustration Scientists have ...

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 ...