Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has teamed up with a telescope on the ground to find a remote gas planet about 13,000 light-years away, making it one of the ...

Astronomers have spotted the smallest "rogue planet" candidate yet known, a world possibly smaller than Earth that apparently cruises through our Milky Way galaxy unattached to a star. The potential ...

Astronomers have finally pinned down the mass and distance of a lonely world that drifts through the galaxy without a parent star, a feat that turns a once-theoretical class of objects into a ...

The Nature Index 2025 Research Leaders — previously known as Annual Tables — reveal the leading institutions and countries/territories in the natural and health sciences, according to their output in ...

In context: NASA estimates that a single galaxy may harbor trillions of rogue planets. These starless worlds drift alone through interstellar space and have no parent star. They remain challenging to ...

Most planets spend their lives orbiting a star, but some are destined for exile. According to a study published in Science on Jan. 1, 2026, astronomers have successfully measured the mass and distance ...

What does the “typical” exosolar system look like? We know it’s not likely to look like our own Solar System, given that our familiar planets don’t include entire classes of planets (Hot Jupiters!

A new statistical study of planets found by a technique called gravitational microlensing suggests that Neptune-mass worlds are likely the most common type of planet to form in the icy outer realms of ...