This is a still from a simulation of a forming planetary disk, made by University of Warwick and Stephen Hawking Research Fellow Rebecca Nealon. The images show the rotating inner disk along the top ...

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a spectacular new image of the largest and most unusual protoplanetary disk ever observed around a single star. The object, officially known as IRAS 23077+6707 ...

Across the Milky Way and beyond, planetary systems appear to fall into a few recurring blueprints, and recent exoplanet surveys suggest that just four layouts may dominate the universe. Drawing on ...

• Astronomers have discovered a 34-million-year-old planet-forming disk around a small red star more than 30 million years after such disks typically disappear, challenging our understanding of how ...

New simulations offer new explanation for star's 85-year flare. In this scenario, a young giant planet is burning up very close to its star, suggesting solar systems may have hosted many of such ...

A young, massive planet is orbiting in an unusual place in its star system, and it’s leading researchers to revive a long-debated view of how giant planets can form. “My first reaction was, there’s no ...

In a recent study published in Nature Astronomy, a team of astronomers have observed a massive young star near the center of the Milky Way that has developed mysterious spiral arms. The team used the ...

A planet-forming disk with more water than all of Earth's oceans has been discovered. The disk, which is located in the constellation Taurus, is 450 light-years away from Earth. Astronomers used the ...

Spectacular clouds swirl across the surface of Jupiter. These clouds contain water, just like Earth's, but are much denser on the gas giant—so thick that no spacecraft has been able to measure exactly ...