Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I cover aerospace, astronomy & hosted The Cosmic Controversy Podcast. Sep 18, 2025, 09:28pm EDT Sep 18, 2025, 09:29pm EDT Four ...

A team of scientists has found a new planet which orbits the wrong way around its host star. The planet, named WASP-17, and orbiting a star 1000 light years away, was found by the UK’s WASP project in ...

Lurking throughout the distant cosmos beyond the solar system, researchers recently found what they believe could be another whopping 10,000 planets orbiting suns that aren't our own. The Milky Way ...

It was almost 100 years ago that Clyde W. Tombaugh discovered Pluto. That was the last planet found until 1992, when humans found another one. But this new planet wasn't in our solar system—it was ...

Exoplanets—planets that orbit stars beyond our solar system—have transformed our understanding of the universe. Since the first confirmed discovery in the 1990s, more than 5,000 have been identified, ...

Astronomers are investigating a strange class of exoplanets known as eccentric warm Jupiters — massive gas giants that orbit their stars in unexpected, elongated paths. Unlike their close-orbiting ...

Scientists say they have an inexpensive way of predicting what extrasolar planets are made of, simply by looking at the chemical composition of their host stars. If a distant star contains high levels ...

In a significant leap forward in the quest for extraterrestrial life, NASA recently announced the detection of oxygen in the atmosphere of an exoplanet. This revolutionary discovery will be the ...

Most exoplanet hunters chase biosignatures the way bird dogs chase the scent of a quail. But in a talk at the European Astrobiology Institute’s recent BEACON 25 conference in Reykjavik, astrophysicist ...

Telltale turbulence in the dust rings surrounding a distant star has revealed the presence of a small planet. This new technique for hunting for extrasolar planets offers the opportunity to track down ...

More than 6,000 exoplanets, or worlds beyond our solar system, have so far been confirmed. The new technique involved analyzing old data from NASA's TESS satellite, focusing on fainter stars. Finding ...