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 ...

Far beyond Neptune, in the frozen depths of the Kuiper Belt, many ancient objects oddly resemble giant snowmen made of ice and rock. For years, scientists wondered how these delicate two-lobed shapes ...

Simulations reveal that Jupiter’s rapid growth disrupted the early solar system, creating rings where new planetesimals formed much later than expected. These late-forming bodies match the ages and ...

The workings of our solar system are roughly the same now as they have been for millions of years. Moons circle their planets, the planets circle the sun, the sun’s magnetic fields and sunspots wax ...

Ever since Isaac Newton famously talked about gravity, its dominance as a force in our solar system has been well known. It's responsible for the orbits of the planets and their satellites, but there ...