Over 437 light years away a planet called HAT-P-26b is orbiting a star that is twice the size of our own. It’s a type of planet known as a “warm Neptune” which means that it is roughly ...

This image of the planet Uranus was taken by the spacecraft Voyager 2 in 1986. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) Previously, scientists had suggested it was the methane of Neptune that makes that ...

Because Uranus and Neptune are so far away, scientists only have educated guesses about the combination of ices and gases that make up these ice giants. While the general understanding is that ...

In 2005 an object larger than Pluto was discovered in the Kuiper Belt. This discovery would call Pluto's planetary status into question and help create a new term, Dwarf Planet.

Observations of the Neptune-like exoplanet HAT-P-26b show that its ... the more heavy elements its atmosphere contains. Jupiter’s atmosphere has less heavy elements than Neptune’s, for example.

For comparison, Earth's own moon — at 2,160 miles wide (3,475 km) a giant compared with the Neptune satellite — orbits our planet at an average distance of about 239,000 miles (384,600 km).

Our solar system may have a ninth planet about 10 times the mass of Earth far out beyond Neptune, only the third discovered in our solar system since ancient times, astronomers say.

The new planet was discovered at the Berlin Observatory immediately. Not quite sure But the find was quickly mired in controversy, with Britain's powerful Astronomer Royal, George Airy, arguing that a ...