Luke Skywalker famously said if there was a bright center of the universe, Tatooine was the planet it was farthest from. That didn't stop it from becoming the most famous planet in a galaxy far, far ...

When it comes to extrasolar planets, appearances can be deceiving. Astronomers have imaged a new planet, and it appears nearly identical to one of the best studied gas-giant planets. But this ...

During the 1240s, Richard Fishacre, a Dominican friar at Oxford University, used his knowledge of light and color to show ...

In ancient times, there were only five major planets, not including Earth. The classical planets are Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, which were observed by many civilizations around the ...

The Solar System does not have a clear border. The influence of the Sun in certain domains is small enough for the Voyager probes to have escaped into interstellar space, but there are comets and ...

Beginning in late November during the waning phases of the Moon, and then again in late December, you can investigate the possibility of a curious optical phenomenon. It involves a bright planet ...

The infrared spectra of 2MASS 0249 c (top) and beta Pictoris b (bottom) are similar, as expected for two objects of comparable mass that formed in the same stellar nursery. Unlike 2MASS 0249 c, beta ...