Far beyond Neptune, in the frozen depths of the Kuiper Belt, many ancient objects oddly resemble giant snowmen made of ice and rock. For years, scientists wondered how these delicate two-lobed shapes ...

A computer visualization maps small bodies in the solar system that are expected to be observed by the Rubin Observatory during the 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time. Red indicates near-Earth ...

Researchers simulated how gravitational collapse forms two-lobed contact binaries in the Kuiper Belt without destructive collisions.

Protoplanetary disk. Figure from a computer simulation visualizing the formation of planets (https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12278 ). Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech. August 22, 2024, Mountain View, CA - An ...

A region of active star formation in the constellation Ophiuchus is giving astronomers new insights into the conditions in which our own solar system was born. In particular, a new study of the ...

Scientists from MIT and their colleagues have estimated the lifetime of the solar nebula — a key stage during which much of the solar system evolution took shape. This new estimate suggests that the ...

If you've ever wondered why we are here, then you can thank Jupiter for part of the answer. A new study from Rice University suggests that if it weren't for the gas giant, the Earth would have ...

Peering through a cosmic keyhole at distant baby star, astronomers may have opened a new window on the deep past of our own solar system. Weighing in at 0.6 solar mass, HOPS-315 should someday grow to ...