Society for Science & the Public, which publishes Science News, uses cookies to personalize your experience and improve our services. For more information on how we use cookies on our websites, visit our Cookie Policy.
Feature Astronomy

The recipes for solar system formation are getting a rewrite

Oddball exoplanets raise new questions about how solar systems form

exoplanet illustration

TEST KITCHEN  With so many worlds turning up outside our solar system, it’s time to add some chapters to the planetary production manual.

Joseph Alessio

By Lisa Grossman

This article is only available to Science News subscribers.

Subscribers, enter your e-mail address to access our archives.

Not a subscriber?

Science News is a nonprofit.

Support us by subscribing now.

More Stories from Science News on Astronomy

  1. black hole illustration
    Space

    The Milky Way’s supermassive black hole reached record brightness this year

    By Emily Conover
  2. Exoplanet K2 18b
    Astronomy

    This may be the first known exoplanet with rain and clouds of water droplets

    By Lisa Grossman
  3. MeerKAT telescope array
    Astronomy

    Giant radio bubbles spew from near the Milky Way’s central black hole

    By Emily Conover
  4. pulsar orbiting neutron star
    Space

    Einstein’s general relativity reveals new features of a pulsar

    By Emily Conover
  5. asteroid
    Science & Society

    ‘End Times’ explores the catastrophic events that could kill us all

    By Kyle Plantz
  6. neutron star
    Space

    LIGO and Virgo probably spotted the first black hole swallowing up a neutron star

    By Emily Conover
  7. CHIME telescope
    Space

    Astronomers just quintupled the number of known repeating fast radio bursts

    By Lisa Grossman
  8. terrascope
    Space

    A proposed space telescope would use Earth’s atmosphere as a lens

    By Emily Conover

From the Nature Index

Paid Content