This illustration shows three possible scenarios for the evolution of asteroid belts.

This artist's concept shows how astronomers use the unique orbit of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and a depth-perceiving trick called parallax to determine the distance of dark planets, black hole...

The first discovery of an Earth-size planet in the habitable zones of another star meant planets other than Earth may have liquid water on their surface.

Astronomers can take pictures of exoplanets by removing the overwhelming glare of the stars they orbit.

An artist's conception shows the Kepler-10 system, home to two rocky planets. In the foreground is Kepler-10c, a planet that weighs 17 times as much as Earth and is more than twice as large in size...

This figure charts 30 hours of observations taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope of a strongly irradiated exoplanet (an planet orbiting a star beyond our own). It shows the very rapid heating th...

This image from NASA's Kepler mission shows the telescope's full field of view -- an expansive star-rich patch of sky in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra.

This artist's concept shows the searing-hot gas planet WASP-12b (orange orb) and its star.

There are 4,696 planet candidates now known with the release of the seventh Kepler planet candidate catalog - an increase of 521 since the release of the previous catalog in Jan. 2015.

This artist’s impression shows the formation of a gas giant planet in the ring of dust around the young star HD 100546.

An artist's illustration of Kepler-64b or PH1, a planet discovered by volunteers from the Planet Hunters citizen science project. PH1, shown in the foreground, is the first reported case of a plane...

This graphic shows Kepler-76b's orbit around a yellow-white, type F star located 2,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus.

The exoplanet Corot-7b is so close to its Sun-like host star that it must experience extreme conditions. This planet has a mass five times that of Earth’s and is in fact the closest known exoplanet...

This is a temperature map of the "hot Jupiter" class exoplanet WASP 43b. The white-colored region on the daytime side is 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit. The nighttime side temperatures drop to under 1,00...

Hubble finds a deep-blue exoplanet that may feature pummeling showers of glass rain moving at 4,500 mph. Care to visit?

This artist's rendition shows one possible appearance for the planet HD 219134b, the nearest confirmed rocky exoplanet found to date outside our solar system.

The first planet to have its clouds mapped showed us what weather looked like on a planet outside our solar system.

The first Earth-size planet discovered around a near solar twin, the discovery of Kepler-452b brings us closer than ever to finding an Earth-like planet.

NASA's Kepler spacecraft has spotted a planet that alternately runs late and early in its orbit because a second, "invisible" world is tugging on it. This is the first definite detection of a previ...

An animation explaining how the hybrid Lyot coronagraph works. Watch the longer version here.

Today Kepler-452b is receiving 10 percent more energy from its parent star than the Earth is from the Sun. If Kepler-452b had the same mass as Earth it would be on the verge of experiencing the run...

This video is a trailer of the upcoming TESS mission.

Planets having atmospheres rich in helium may be common in our galaxy, according to a new theory based on data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. These planets would be around the mass of Neptune...

The artist's concept depicts Kepler-69c, a super-Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of a star like our sun, located about 2,700 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus.

A new study using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has shown that a planet is making the star that it orbits act much older than it actually is, as explained in our latest press release. ...