Planet formation is violent, slow and messy
68470
The collisions that spawn planets are bigger and take place over longer periods of time than previously thought, say astronomers who studied nearly 300 stars with NASA&#39;s Spitzer Space Telescope.
70447
AUSTIN, Texas &mdash; An extrasolar planet about one-fourth the heft of Jupiter might have formed from the collision and merger of two planets, astronomers announced today.
470700
For the first time, scientists have found rings of dust around planet-bearing stars an important confirmation of theories about how planets form, NASA has announced.
232757
Evidence is mounting that    the time-weathered red planet was once a warm and water-rich world. And a Mars    awash with water gives rise to that globe possibly being fit for habitation    in its past - and perhaps a distant dwelling for life today.
5207
Planet-building is dusty work, and now two space telescopes have captured images of cosmic construction materials: disks of dust circling stars about the same size as our sun.
574570
Imagine our sun snatching an alien planet from another solar system, four billion years ago. A team of scientists, including a Utah physicist, say it&#39;s a possibility based on a wild new simulation.
34606
Astronomers discover a newborn planet in a solar system that is still in the process of forming.
117014
Signs of ancient eruptions indicate a planet geologically active and may suggest presence of simple life forms.
544796
Since a Nobel-winning discovery, cosmology has gotten more complicated.
386064
This animation illustrates a massive collision between rocky, embryonic planets as big as mountain ranges. Such collisions form the basis of the planet-building process.
376073
Mars shows signs of geologically recent volcanic activity, and scientists find to their surprise that there might well be another volcanic blast in the Red Planet&#39;s future.
182887
Astronomers have discovered a new class of planets outside the solar system that hug their parent stars so tightly they take less than a day to complete an orbit.
323834
The first "sniffs of air" of two huge far-away planets reveal that they seem to be missing water, a surprising finding amid weather unlike any planets in our solar system with blast furnace-like gusts amid supersonic winds.
59567
Two old stars appear to be generating planets long after the normal period, astronomers say.
116286
New pictures of Saturn's moon Titan and other observations show that the Huygens spacecraft landed on a spongy surface like wet sand or soft clay, possibly saturated with liquid methane.
578170
The first pictures from the unseen side of Mercury reveal the wrinkles of a shrinking, aging planet with scars from volcanic eruptions and a birthmark shaped like a spider.
258488
The race to find distant new âEarthsâ heated up considerably yesterday with the detection of two of the smallest planets ever detected outside the Solar System.