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 ...

And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Sometimes, if the night is dark and clear enough, you can look up and see the Milky Way in its arc across the sky.

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, ...

A tiny meteorite is rewriting what scientists thought they knew about the origins of our solar system. New evidence found in shavings from a meteorite known as Northwest Africa 12264 — a 50-gram (1.8 ...

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft captured this high-resolution enhanced color view of Pluto that is inserted beneath the Short Wave logo. The image combines blue, red and infrared images taken by the ...

Tiny shavings from a single meteorite could completely overturn our understanding of how the solar system formed, after the space rock turned out to be older than expected. Previous research suggests ...

You're probably familiar with how the solar system looks today. There are eight officially recognized planets located more or less on the same plane, orbiting the sun. But have you ever given a ...

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 ...

Our Solar System is believed to have formed from a cloud of gas and dust, the so-called solar nebula, which began to condense on itself gravitationally ~ 4.6 billion years ago. As this cloud ...

Astronomers have witnessed the creation of a solar system for the first time. Data captured by the ALMA telescope in Chile and the James Webb Space Telescope showed planets forming around a star in ...

This story is part of Short Wave's series Space Camp about all the weird, wonderful things happening in the universe. Check out the rest of the series. If you were born in the last century you might ...