Mercury has long baffled astronomers because it defies much of what we know about planet formation. A new space mission ...

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 ...

Before the Earth and other planets formed, the young sun was still surrounded by cosmic gas and dust. Over the millennia, rock fragments of various sizes formed from the dust. Many of these became ...

Scientists have shown that Earth’s basic chemistry solidified within just three million years of the Solar System’s formation. Initially, the planet was barren and inhospitable, missing water 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 ...

Earth and the planetary object that gave rise to the Moon were likely born in the same region of the solar system. Reading time 3 minutes Around 100 million years after the formation of the solar ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. An award-winning reporter writing about stargazing and the night sky. The solar system suddenly has a new member. A new object ...

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, ...