A tiny meteorite is rewriting what scientists thought they knew about the origins of our solar system. New evidence found in shavings from a meteorite known as Northwest Africa 12264 — a 50-gram (1.8 ...

Astronomers have spotted a planetary system being conceived from the swirl of gas and dust surrounding a star — giving us an unprecedented, real-time look at how our solar system would’ve formed some ...

The Sun's formation caused temperature differences in the surrounding disk of gas and dust. Inner, hotter regions formed rocky planets from less volatile elements. Outer, colder regions allowed ...

This illustration shows the creation of an asteroid family. Ejected fragments from catastrophic collisions of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter tend to follow similar orbits around the sun, allowing ...