Alien Planets

The droplets falling through alien skies are broadly similar to the ones that splash down here on Earth, even if they're made of different stuff.

A NASA spacecraft built to spot alien worlds has completed its first two years of work, and the tally is in: the mission hauled in 2,241 new planet candidates for scientists to study.

Astronomers spotted a possible searing-hot planet orbiting Vega, one of the brightest and most famous stars in the sky.

Scientists think they've spied an alien world that lost its atmosphere — then conjured itself a new one.

The Milky Way may contain other planets that have continents and water, similar to Earth.

We keep getting reminders that the Milky Way's planetary diversity dwarfs what we see in our own solar system.

New research suggests a way to move heat around "tidally locked" alien planets: ocean currents whipping around the worlds faster than they rotate.

A newly discovered alien world could help astronomers better understand the atmospheres of rocky exoplanets.

The nearest solar system to our own may actually host two potentially life-supporting planets as a new candidate emerges around Alpha Centauri A, a new study reports.

The seven rocky planets orbiting the red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1 have remarkably similar densities, suggesting they likely have similar compositions, too.

Sixteen-year-old Kartik Pinglé and 18-year-old Jasmine Wright helped find four exoplanets circling the sunlike star HD 108236.

Ever ridden a teacup ride at a state fair? If so, you might have a small taste of life in a whirling, twirling sextuply-eclipsing sextuple star system.

The planets around a star called TOI-178 know how to keep a beat — so smoothly, in fact, that scientists were able to discover new alien worlds by deciphering the system's music.

Scientists were able to measure the orbit of exoplanet GOT 'EM-1b, a gas giant nearly 1,300 light-years from Earth.

A rocky exoplanet known as TOI-561b was found circling one of the oldest stars in our Milky Way galaxy. The exoplanet is about 50% larger than Earth.

Astronomers just confirmed the existence of KOI-5Ab, which was first flagged as a potential planet by NASA's pioneering Kepler space telescope way back in 2009.

Scientists may have detected radio emissions from a planet orbiting a star beyond our sun for the first time.

Planet Nine may not be such an oddball after all, if it does indeed exist.

Scientists have discovered a cold, faint "super-planet" that has remained elusive to traditional infrared survey methods.