Across the Milky Way and beyond, planetary systems appear to fall into a few recurring blueprints, and recent exoplanet surveys suggest that just four layouts may dominate the universe. Drawing on ...

In the remote outer reaches of planetary systems, far beyond the orbit of known planets, enormous and mysterious worlds silently loop around their stars. Some drift as far as 10,000 times the distance ...

The giant planets weren't always where we find them today. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune formed in a more compact configuration and later underwent a violent reshuffling that scattered them to ...

Illustration comparing the planets of the Solar System and the Sun on the same scale. The planets are shown to scale relative to each other but their distances are not. From left to right the bodies ...

Simulations reveal that Jupiter’s rapid growth disrupted the early solar system, creating rings where new planetesimals formed much later than expected. These late-forming bodies match the ages and ...

Alfredo has a PhD in Astrophysics and a Master's in Quantum Fields and Fundamental Forces from Imperial College London. Alfredo has a PhD in Astrophysics and a Master's in Quantum Fields and ...