Planets

Find out everything there is to know about planets and stay updated on the latest planet news with the comprehensive articles, interactive features and planet images at LiveScience.com. Learn more about space and the solar system as scientists continue to make amazing discoveries about planets.

Related Topics: Our Amazing Planet, The Great American Solar Eclipse 2017, Mars

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A 2007 image from the APL-built STEREO B spacecraft of the moon crossing in front of the sun. A new conceptual study proposes to observe the Earth in a similar way, to learn if the transit method can determine a planet’s habitability.

How to spot aliens? Look at Earth, scientists propose.

By Mindy Weisberger

Revisiting how Earth looks from space could offer scientists clues for finding alien life on distant worlds.

This mosaic of Mars is composed of about 100 Viking Orbiter images.

Mars may hide oceans of water beneath its crust, study finds

By Charles Q. Choi

Oceans' worth of water may remain buried in the crust of Mars, and not lost to space as previously long thought, a new study finds.

An artist's depiction of the exoplanet GJ 1132 b, which orbits a red dwarf star about 41 light-years away from Earth and may sport lava continuously oozing up from cracks in its crust.

This strange lava-rich alien planet is making itself a new atmosphere

By Meghan Bartels

Scientists think they've spied an alien world that lost its atmosphere — then conjured itself a new one.

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is on the search for planets outside our solar system, including those that could support life. The mission finds exoplanets that periodically block part of the light from their host stars — events called transits.

Newfound super-Earth alien planet whips around its star every 0.67 days

By Mike Wall

We keep getting reminders that the Milky Way's planetary diversity dwarfs what we see in our own solar system.

The EC 002 meteorite is "relatively coarse grained, tan and beige," with crystals that are green, yellow-green and yellow-brown.

4.6-billion-year-old meteorite belongs to Earth’s long-lost baby cousin

By Mindy Weisberger

Rare chemical makeup in a meteorite that fell to Earth in 2020 hints at its unusual origins: from a pre-planetary body dating to our solar system's beginnings.

On the day side of Earth, magnetic reconnection funnels material and energy from the sun into Earth's magnetic environment.

Earth's magnetic field flipped 42,000 years ago, creating a climate 'disaster'

By Mindy Weisberger

Earth's last magnetic flip 42,000 years brought environmental change and extinctions. Could that happen now?

An illustration shows what Planet 9 might look like orbiting far from our sun. Now, at least two physicists think this picture is wrong and it's actually a black hole.

Planet 9 probably doesn't exist, new paper argues

By Rafi Letzter

Does the solar system really have a big, dark ninth planet drifting somewhere far beyond the orbit of Neptune? A new paper argues that Planet 9 is a statistical mirage.

An artist's depiction of a sea on Saturn's moon Titan.

Largest sea on Titan could be more than 1,000 feet deep

By Elizabeth Howell

Data from one of Cassini's last flybys of Titan probed the depths of Kraken Mare to better understand the moon's alien chemistry.

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft captured this image of the blue haze around the dwarf planet Pluto during its historic flyby in 2015.

Pluto's haze made up of ice crystals with cyanide hearts

By Charles Q. Choi

The haze shrouding Pluto might be made up of ice crystals possessing cyanide hearts, a new study finds.

Two Earth-like planets in space.

What if Earth shared its orbit with another planet?

By Charles Q. Choi

Earth is the only planet traveling within its nearly circular orbit around the sun. But what if Earth shared its orbit with another planet?

An artist's depiction of K2-141b, showing molten rock evaporating into a thin atmosphere in the region closest to the exoplanet's star.

This bizarre planet could have supersonic winds in an atmosphere of vaporized rock

By Meghan Bartels

Scientists think they have identified a lava world so dramatic that it might boast a thin regional atmosphere of vaporized rock where it is closest to its star.

An artist's impression of the ultrahot Neptune LTT 9779b and its parent star, LTT 9779.

Astronomers peer into the atmosphere of a rare exoplanet that 'shouldn't exist'

By Michelle Starr

The discovery of the extraordinary exoplanet LTT 9779b was first announced a month ago.

Artist's illustration of Planet Nine, a world about 10 times more massive than Earth that may lie undiscovered in the far outer solar system.

Astronomers find new way to hunt the elusive Planet 9

By Mike Wall

Astronomers are vetting a technique that could aid the hunt for Planet Nine, which some researchers think lurks undiscovered in the far outer system, way beyond Pluto's orbit.

This artist's depiction shows the first validated Earth-size planet to orbit a distant star in the habitable zone identified by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope.

Planets more hospitable to life than Earth may already have been discovered

By Stephanie Pappas

At least two dozen planets outside the solar system might be better for life than Earth.

This Earth-size planet (shown in this artistic illustration) zips around its star every 3.14 days.

'Pi planet' alien world takes 3.14 days to orbit its star

By Mike Wall

Scientists have found an alien world that orbits its host star every 3.14 Earth days, a close approximation of the famous mathematical constant pi.

In a new study, researchers have modeled the interiors of the ice giants Uranus and Neptune.

Scientists probe the weird, alien water inside of Uranus and Neptune

By Chelsea Gohd

Researchers are investigating an alien version of water inside the strange, icy interiors of Uranus and Neptune.

The two giant planets in the TYC 8998-760-1 system are visible as two bright dots in the center (TYC 8998-760-1b) and bottom right (TYC 8998-760-1c) of the frame, noted by arrows. Other bright dots, which are background stars, are visible in the image as well. By taking different images at different times, the team was able to distinguish the planets from the background stars. The image was captured by blocking the light from the young, sunlike star (top-left of center) using a coronagraph, which allows for the fainter planets to be detected. The bright and dark seen on the star’s image are optical artifacts.

Multiplanet system around sunlike star photographed for 1st time ever

By Mike Wall

For the first time ever, astronomers have directly imaged multiple planets orbiting a sunlike star.

Artistic rendition of our solar system.

The solar system: Facts about our cosmic neighborhood

By Sarah Wild

Take a journey through our solar system.

This image shows the disk around the young AB Aurigae star, where the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) has spotted signs of planet birth. Close to the center of the image, in the inner region of the disk, we see the "twist" (in very bright yellow) that scientists believe marks the spot where a planet is forming. This twist lies at about the same distance from the AB Aurigae star as Neptune from the sun. The image was obtained with the VLT's SPHERE instrument in polarized light.

Baby exoplanet spotted growing around distant star (photo)

By Mike Wall

New imagery pinpoints the spot where a baby planet is forming around the young star AB Aurigae, which lies 520 light-years from Earth.

How to see the last supermoon of 2020

By Laura Geggel

Even if you're stuck indoors during the pandemic, you can still catch May's full moon, also known as the flower moon.