A passing star could disrupt the orbits of the planets and cause the Earth to be flung off into deep space.
In Ridley Scott's 'The Martian', Matt Damon's character ends up stranded on the Red Planet in the year 2035.
The previously unseen world is believed to orbit far out at a range of 838 times Earth's distance from the Sun.
Tantalizing new evidence of this mysterious world has been found courtesy of two deep infrared surveys.
The James Webb Space Telescope has found strong evidence of life on a planet situated 124 light-years away.
Once, long ago in Earth's distant past, the planet's oceans may have turned a rather unusual color.
A theoretical futuristic megastructure known as a Dyson swarm could have dire consequences for our planet.
Despite being closer to the size of Jupiter than the Sun, Barnard's Star is at the center of its own little solar system.
It was incredibly unlikely that intelligent life evolved on our planet - but perhaps not quite as unlikely as previously believed.
Scientists now believe that our solar system may have once been visited by something very large indeed.
The Red Planet is a long way away from the Earth, but the challenges are not insurmountable.
Biologist Prof Tim Coulson has suggested that one species in particular has the potential to dominate the planet.
The late planetary scientist, astronomer, author and science communicator would have been 90 today.
The rhesus monkeys have so far managed to evade capture after escaping from a laboratory in South Carolina.
We tend to assume that an alien civilization would have its own home world - but what if they didn't actually need one ?
The comet comes from an enigmatic and colossal cloud of planetesimals that surrounds our solar system.
A new study has highlighted the potential for finding habitable extrasolar worlds around F-type stars.
This peculiar striped rock is quite unlike anything that scientists have ever seen before on the Red Planet.
The Moon will be joined by a second natural satellite for a short time beginning this Sunday.
Here on Earth we take day and night for granted, but such a cycle might not even exist on some planets.