Photographs of planets can fool you. A close crop of swirling cloud bands or a patch of rusty dust can look like almost anything, and many of us only recognize a planet when we see the whole disk ...

In August of 2006, astronomers at the International Astronomical Union (IAU) democratically voted to reclassify Pluto as a dwarf planet — but 20 years later, with our greater knowledge and ...

Astronomers now estimate there is at least one planet for every star in our galaxy. These worlds, called exoplanets, are planets that orbit stars outside our solar system. But new research from ...

Astronomers know that planets can exist in double – or binary – star systems, where two stars orbit each other. Typically, the planets orbit either one of the stars or loop around both in a larger ...

As far-fetched as it may seem, quirks of orbital mechanics could allow hundreds of planets to be packed around a star ...