Astronomers have long wondered why planets orbiting two stars like the iconic Tatooine in Star Wars are so rare. You would ...
General relativity helps explain the lack of planets around tight binary stars by driving orbital resonances that eject or destroy close-in worlds. This process naturally creates a “desert” of ...
Uranus is an oddball planet. It spins around the Sun on its side, so the poles take turns pointing towards the Sun during the planet’s orbit. Its magnetic field is also very weird: it is tilted by ...
A distant star has just been caught in the act of destroying one of its own worlds, a violent finale astronomers have long predicted but never directly seen. The event offers a preview of the kind of ...
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Astronomers have discovered the earliest seeds of rocky planets forming in the gas around a baby sun-like star, providing a precious peek into the dawn of our own solar system.