'6 in 1776, 11 in 1800s, 8 today': Why solar system's count keeps changing and may change again

In 1776, the year the American Revolution began, the known solar system was a tidy place. Six planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. All visible to the naked eye, all known to ...

A giant planet beat the odds and actually got hotter after its star died

The James Webb Space Telescope has revealed the first atmosphere around a surviving planet around a white dwarf. Credit: NASA ...

TESS just found a planet in a new way—and more may be hiding in its eight years of data

For the first time, NASA's TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) mission has identified a planet orbiting a distant star thanks to its warping of space-time. Unlike the star-hugging transiting ...