It's easy to take it for granted that our own solar system, with one star, is the norm - but it turns out that this may not be the case.
The discovery of a distant solar system with its planets in a seemingly impossible order has been revealed this week.
Astronomers have detected an enigmatic free floating planet approximately 10,000 light-years from Earth.
Dark matter accumulating in the cores of particular large planets could help us to finally confirm its existence.
A passing star could disrupt the orbits of the planets and cause the Earth to be flung off into deep space.
The previously unseen world is believed to orbit far out at a range of 838 times Earth's distance from the Sun.
A type of rare, though extremely energetic and deadly cosmic event is able to wipe out whole planets.
Scientists have come up with a way to find planets capable of supporting dinosaur-like extraterrestrial creatures.
Jupiter is pretty big, but there are other, much larger planets to be found lurking in the depths of the cosmos.
A new study has suggested that extraterrestrials could hitch a ride across the cosmos on rogue extrasolar worlds.
A theoretical new type of telescope could make it possible to obtain close-up views of extrasolar worlds.
Over the last 30 years, scientists have succeeded in identifying a staggering 5,000 planets in distant solar systems.
Evidence of a planet has been found in a distant galaxy 28 million light years away.
Scientists searching for life-bearing exoplanets have identified a new class of potentially habitable world.
A new NASA study has revealed just how many potentially habitable worlds there are in our galaxy.
Other stars may be able to host more than our own solar system's solitary habitable world, a new study suggests.
Planets with two suns like Luke Skywalker's homeworld may be as common as planets orbiting a solitary star.
Scientists have announced the discovery of 139 new objects situated in the far reaches of our solar system.
It turns out that planets could orbit a black hole in much the same way as our own planet orbits the Sun.
Astrophysicists have discovered a way to detect the surviving cores of planets orbiting white dwarf stars.