Some of the most promising places to look for extraterrestrials have remained, so far, mostly hidden from astronomers. Now a game-changing instrument called NIRPS (Near-Infrared Planet Searcher) is ...

Learn why only 14 out of over 6,000 exoplanets orbit two stars, and how Einstein’s general theory of relativity may be to blame.

Astronomers have discovered a planet beyond the solar system that orbits its twin parent stars closer than any ever seen before in a binary. The twin stars in the sky over the newly-found extrasolar ...

In a discovery that's fit for a movie, Northwestern University astronomers have directly imaged a Tatooine-like exoplanet, orbiting two suns. While obtaining an image of a planet beyond our solar ...

Astronomers are increasingly finding planets that do not simply circle their stars in neat, clockwork ellipses but instead trace out paths that look more like intricate choreography. The latest ...

This is a brilliant question because the notion of an orbit is counterintuitive. We know that massive objects (really, any objects with mass) gravitationally attract other massive objects; Newton's ...

Astronomers have found thousands of exoplanets around single stars, but few around binary stars—even though both types of stars are equally common. Physicists can now explain the dearth.

In the cold, dark outskirts of planetary systems far beyond the reach of the known planets, mysterious gas giants and planetary masses silently orbit their stars — sometimes thousands of astronomical ...