In the hunt for extraterrestrial life, we usually look for planets orbiting sun-like stars and icy moons. But there is another possible candidate—planets circling white dwarfs, the hot, dense remnants ...

Pluto's unusual eccentricity and tilt is likely due to its interactions with neighboring Neptune and other giant planets, said Renu Malhotra, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona who has ...

Some habitable worlds orbiting dead stars could be kept alive for aeons thanks to a quirk of Einstein’s theory of gravity ...

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. This image of Pluto was made after the New Horizons spacecraft flew past the dwarf planet on July ...

Scientists measure the distance to the Moon by bouncing lasers off mirrors placed there by space probes and astronauts.

The gleaming moon hanging in our sky has been the subject of countless songs, poems, myths, and legends. But in reality, what would happen if the Earth suddenly lost the moon? Quite a few things, ...

So the bottom line is that the gravity of the closer tidal bulge on the Earth is pulling the Moon forward, which increases the size of the Moon’s orbit. This means that the Moon gets slightly farther ...

For researchers at the University of Idaho, spotting a moon 6 miles wide orbiting Uranus, a staggering 1.8 billion miles from Earth, may actually be easier than finding a white cat in a snowstorm.

The methane gas may constitute a rarefied atmosphere, or it may come from erupting plumes on Makemake’s surface.