New work offers fresh evidence supporting the supernova shock wave theory of our solar system’s origin. According to one longstanding theory, our Solar System’s formation was triggered by a shock wave ...

New work from Carnegie’s Alan Boss and Sandra Keiser provides surprising new details about the trigger that may have started the earliest phases of planet formation in our solar system. It is ...

When you see art of our solar system as the planet orbit the sun, you may notice that Earth's orbit has a tilt. It is not a perfect circle. What's more, Earth is not the only planet that displays such ...

If you've ever wondered why we are here, then you can thank Jupiter for part of the answer. A new study from Rice University suggests that if it weren't for the gas giant, the Earth would have ...

Scientists were able to see the moment when planets began to form around a star. Astronomers have witnessed the birth of a solar system beyond our own for the first time. An international team of ...

Illustration comparing the planets of the Solar System and the Sun on the same scale. The planets are shown to scale relative to each other but their distances are not. From left to right the bodies ...

The solar system is 4.54 billion years old, based on rock dating. Gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn) likely formed first. Ice giants (Uranus and Neptune) probably formed next. Rocky planets formed last, ...