Planets

Uranus (left) and Neptune (right), as seen by the Voyager 2 spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech; NASA

A guide to the ice giants Uranus and Neptune

The planet Mercury will get brighter and easier to see in the morning sky throughout August 2019. Credit: Pete Lawrence

Observing guide The brightest planets to see in August's night sky

Professor Brian Cox on location at Stegastein, overlooking Aurlandsfjorden in Norway. Although today Venus is hot and hostile, this has not always been the case. Before our neighbouring planet was gripped by an extreme green house effect, there was water. Much like there is on Earth today. Credit: BBC

The secrets behind The Planets’ special effects

Professor Brian Cox returns for his new BBC Two series The Planets. Credit: BBC Studios

The Planets: an interview with Brian Cox

Image of Pluto taken by New Horizons

What’s warming Pluto’s icy heart?

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Missing link of planetary formation discovered

he existance of Planet Nine was first suggested by Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown in 2016. Several surveys have since launched to search for the planet, but it has not been found.
Credit: Caltech/R Hurt (IPAC)

Is there no Planet Nine after all?

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Water detected in exoplanet atmosphere

Artist’s impression of dusty belts around Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our Solar System. Does this belt indicate the presence of an undiscovered planetary system? Image Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

Dust ring found round closest star

Riga, Estonia, where this year's conference was held. This image was shared on the Twitter feed of Europlanet, which runs the conference (@europlanetmedia). Credit: Europlanet Media

European Planetary Science Congress 2017

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Mars-like object detected in outer Solar System

Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have gathered the most detailed data yet on a gap in a protoplanetary, or planet-forming, disk surrounding a young star.

This artist's concept illustrates one interpretation of the data, which attributes the disk gap to planet formation. At the center lies a young star that is pulling in material from an inner disk of dust and gas. The gap between this inner disk and the thick outer disk is believed to be occupied by developing gas giant planets. The putative planets prevent the outer disk material from naturally falling in toward the star, thereby creating the gap.

The inner disk is roughly the size of our inner solar system, or the distance between the Sun and Jupiter. The gap would span orbits equivalent to those of Jupiter and Saturn. The Saturn-like rings around the planets hint that they are very young and still surrounded by debris left over from their own formation. (Note: the planets in this illustration are exaggerated in size.)

At the edges of the solar system, the thick disk is expected to coalesce into asteroids, comets and possibly more planets. The bipolar flow, or dim jets of material, shooting out of the star's north and south poles, is a characteristic typical of young stars that are not yet fully formed.

Do planetary pebbles solve gas giant mystery?

This sky map shows the location of the star HD 219134 (circle), host to the nearest confirmed rocky planet found to date outside of our solar system. The star lies just off the "W" shape of the constellation Cassiopeia and can be seen with the naked eye in dark skies. It actually has multiple planets, none of which are habitable.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Spacecraft operations are based at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Littleton, Colorado. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

Planetary system discovered in Cassiopeia

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New evidence supports planet ‘rejuvenation’ theory

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Small ‘beads’ central to planet formation