Our solar system’s origin story spans billions of years and involves clouds of gas, cosmic collisions, and planetary migrations that shaped the worlds we know today. While it may seem intuitive that ...

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 ...

Scientists have shown that Earth’s basic chemistry solidified within just three million years of the Solar System’s formation. Initially, the planet was barren and inhospitable, missing water and ...

Most of our knowledge about the Solar System’s formation and evolution comes from the study of extraterrestrial rock samples called chondritic meteorites. These rocks, which are fragments of asteroids ...

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Credit: ALMA(ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/M. McClure et al. Astronomers have witnessed the birth of a planetary ...

The workings of our solar system are roughly the same now as they have been for millions of years. Moons circle their planets, the planets circle the sun, the sun’s magnetic fields and sunspots wax ...