Planetary science

For Lisa Kaltenegger and her generation of exoplanet astronomers, decades of planning have set the stage for an epochal detection.

The grainy image of a “super-Jupiter” is a sign of what’s to come as the telescope’s exoplanet observations ramp up.

Observations of faraway planets have forced a near-total rewrite of the story of how our solar system came to be.

Robots are about to venture into the sunless depths of lunar craters to investigate ancient water ice trapped there, while remote studies find hints about how water arrives on rocky worlds.

The Tonga eruption in January was “basically like Krakatoa 2.” This time, geophysicists could explain the tiny tsunamis that cropped up all over the planet, solving a 139-year-old mystery about Tonga’s predecessor.

We might have a past faint sun to owe for life’s existence. This has consequences for the possibility of life outside Earth.

The James Webb Space Telescope has the potential to rewrite the history of the cosmos and reshape humanity’s position within it. But first, a lot of things have to work just right.

Over the past decade, researchers have completely rewritten the story of how gas giants such as Jupiter and Saturn form. They’re now debating whether the same process might hold for Earth.

Jupiter and Saturn should be freezing cold. Instead, they’re hot. Researchers now know why.