The Protoplanetary Disk and Planet Formation Approximately 4.6 billion years ago ... This allowed for the formation of the ...

A recent study found that Jupiter was once twice the size that it is now, making it big enough to swallow up 2,000 Earths.

For centuries, astronomers have sought to understand the formation and evolution of the solar system and the dynamics that ...

The discovery could challenge our theories of how gas giants like Jupiter form. Astronomers have discovered an unusual planetary system consisting of a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting a tiny star ...

A cloud of collapsing gas created our Sun, the first thing to form in our solar system. This happened about 4½ billion years ago. Then the planets began to emerge, as the billions of particles of gas ...

In this theory, gas giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn form by gradually piecing together a solid core out of debris orbiting a young star (SN: 4/14/22). That core eventually gets massive ...

Rather than a distant gas giant like Jupiter ... whipping around it once every 4.2 days. At such proximity the planet would broil at around 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to vaporize ...

The gas giants are not capable of hosting extraterrestrial life, but do offer clues in a lingering mystery about how distant planets form ... to our solar system's 4.6 billion years.