When astronomers announced Kepler-452b, they were not just adding another distant world to a growing catalog. They were ...

Exoplanets like Earth have been discovered but not all Earth-like planets are equal when it comes to alien life.

Alien solar systems that are home to so-called "hot Jupiters" — gas giants circling sizzlingly close to their stars — are unlikely homes for Earth-like planets, researchers say. Hot Jupiters get their ...

In a major first, scientists have detected water vapor and possibly even liquid water clouds that rain in the atmosphere of a strange exoplanet that lies in the habitable zone of its host star about ...

New discoveries and fresh looks at familiar worlds show how far exoplanet science has come — and how much remains unknown. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate ...

Scientists have detected a hidden alien planet by examining the orbits of the known worlds in the star system, known as Kepler-139. The newfound exoplanet, called Kepler-139f, is a gigantic world ...

A recent conundrum about a star 1,500 light years away discovered by the Kepler Space Telescope has extraterrestrial enthusiasts crying "alien" as an explanation, but scientists studying the star are ...

Thirty years ago this week, two Swiss astronomers announced that they had spotted the first known planet orbiting a Sun-like star. The Nobel-winning discovery, later published in the pages of Nature, ...