But is this the maximum number of planets that can orbit the sun? Or is there room for more? Compared with other known planetary systems, the solar system contains an unusually high number of planets.

Two planets orbit the poles while another revolves around the star’s equator, suggesting a mysterious, undetected force.

Watch these distant planets orbit their star in spectacular time-lapse Twelve years of images were squished into 4.5 seconds.

The amount of time it takes each one to orbit the system’s sun forms a neat ratio with the orbits of neighboring planets—a trait that’s rare in outer space, researchers reported last week in ...

One hundred light years away, a handful of planets are circling a star in the same configuration as when they formed.

Planets orbit their parent stars while separated by enormous distances—in our solar system, planets are like grains of sand in a region the size of a football field. The time that planets take ...

Astronomers think they may have detected the first Trojan exoplanet, a world that would share the same orbit with another planet.

All the solar system’s planets follow nearly the same plane and direction as they orbit the Sun, and this is something that has fascinated astronomers for eons. That said, is it possible to explain ...

Over time, that disk reaches a stable size and thickness, and then small gravitational instabilities begin to grow those instabilities into planets.