Some research suggests Jupiter formed near Uranus’ current orbit and migrated inward

Jupiter’s formation included accretion and migrations across the solar system

One theory of Jupiter’s formation involves the planet spiraling inwards from the asteroid belt, gathering material and disrupting the initial formation of terrestrial planets. Saturn’s gravitational pull would then reverse its course.

Jupiter’s size forced the creation of modified planetary formation models

Since solar winds remove gases from protoplanetary disks within millions of years of a star’s birth, models needed to provide a mechanism to jump-start Jupiter’s formation and growth. The solution involved incorporating pebbles of matter into the disk.

Watch a visualization of the formation of the planets

The nebular hypothesis proposes that a swirling cloud of gas and dust coalesced into a dense center, forming a star amid nuclear fusion. Lighter elements were blown far from the star while heavier elements remained nearby, serving as primary materials for terrestrial and jovian planets, respectively.

Hot Jupiters are giant planets that orbit very close to their host star

Discovered in 1995, hot Jupiters are a class of exoplanets—planets orbiting stars other than the sun—with size and mass similar to Jupiter. They are most commonly found orbiting metal-rich stars and have become essential for testing theories of planetary system formation.

According to the Grand Tack model, Saturn stopped Jupiter's inward migration

The model suggests Jupiter migrated inward early in its formation and cleared debris from the inner orbits of terrestrial planets. Saturn's gravitational pull saved what was left of the inner solar system to form Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.

A return to Uranus

There's been only one mission to Uranus before—Voyager 2 passed by the ice giant in 1986 before heading off into interstellar space. NASA's recent planned itinerary for space missions lists Uranus as the highest priority over the next decade. The seventh planet is 20 times as far from the sun as Earth, and researchers say its study will shed light on how the outer half of the Solar System formed.

Juno has revealed Jupiter’s polar cyclones, complex atmosphere, and diffuse core

The continent-sized cyclones at Jupiter’s poles generate strong winds and ammonia-laden storms. The spacecraft has also collected data on Jupiter’s unique magnetic field, which resembles a blend of Earth’s and Uranus/Neptune's.

The Hubble Space Telescope made discoveries within our solar system and across the universe

The observatory helped confirm the presence of water on Jupiter's moon Europa, and uncovered seasonal variations on planets like Uranus. It also observed exoplanets and gravitational lensing, proved the existence of supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies, and detected the accelerated expansion of the universe.

Hubble revealed that planet-forming disks are common around young stars

One of Hubble’s early images captured 30 young star systems in the Orion region, each surrounded by material that looked like it was forming planets. These systems increased the number of data points scientists had to test planetary formation models.

In 1994, fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed into Jupiter

Hubble captured the collisions, which created massive black impact sites visible from space. It represented the first time scientists could prepare for, and observe, an interplanetary collision in real time, allowing them to gather valuable information about Jupiter's atmosphere.

ESA’s Juice and NASA’s Europa Clipper will search for habitability near Jupiter

Three of Jupiter’s moons—Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto—possess subsurface oceans that may support life. While Clipper will perform flybys of Europa, Juice will be the first spacecraft to orbit a moon in the outer Solar System.

Metallic hydrogen exists in Jupiter and Saturn due to high pressure and temperature

This state of hydrogen has metallic properties, including conductivity, which powers these planets' magnetic fields. First theorized in the 1930s, its existence was confirmed through indirect evidence before being created in a Harvard lab in 2017.

Observations of Jupiter's moons first demonstrated that light was not instantaneous

In 1676, Danish astronomer Ole Rømer noticed that eclipses of the moons occurred several minutes later when Earth and Jupiter were farther apart, reasoning that light needed more time to travel the greater distance. Lacking knowledge of Earth's orbital diameter, he was unable to calculate the speed of light.

Gaming out how our solar system might catch a new planet

If Pluto's downgraded status to a dwarf planet has got you down, consider this: Scientists think there's a chance our solar system could catch a new planet. The first ever observed so-called Interstellar Object was reported in 2017, a reddish, cigar-shaped rock astronomers named Oumuamua. Although it left in 2022, scientists believe an object with the right mass and trajectory might take a seat at the planetary table. Learn how it would work here.

Asteroids were discovered by 18th-century planet hunters

While looking for a planet between Mars and Jupiter to coincide with an apparent mathematical pattern in the distances of known planets from the sun, a group calling themselves the "Celestial Police" discovered multiple objects that fell into a new classification.

The 45 planets astronomers think are most likely to host alien life

The list includes familiar names like Proxima Centauri b (4 light-years away) and four planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system (about 40 light-years away), but even the nearest of those would take humanity roughly 114,000 years to reach at current spacecraft speeds. The list's real near-term value is as a targeting guide for the James Webb and upcoming Nancy Grace Roman space telescopes.

Exoplanet atmospheric gas patterns may indirectly provide evidence for life

When searching for life beyond the solar system, scientists first determine the range of distances from a star that liquid water—believed to be essential for life—can be found. Within this habitable zone, the presence of specific molecules in an exoplanet's atmosphere—detectable through spectral analysis—can indicate the presence of living things known to produce those compounds.

The Oort Cloud is a shell of icy objects surrounding the solar system, from which many comets originate

Proposed in 1950 by Jan Oort, the theoretical structure is believed to be the origin of comets with periods of more than 200 years. Leftover planetary building blocks from the early solar system formed the Oort Cloud after being flung out by the gravity of planets like Jupiter.

Scientists are experimenting with ways to probe the multiverse theory

Researchers are simulating vacuum bubbles—the theorized starting points of universes—using quantum computers, digital models, and exotic lab setups to study how they form, expand, and possibly collide. One experiment aims to "blow" artificial universe-like bubbles inside ultra-cold quantum gases, potentially capturing real-time glimpses of cosmic birth processes in a lab.

While the sun's gravity keeps the planets in orbit, their gravity also pulls on the sun, causing it and everything else in the solar system to orbit around a mutual balance point called the barycenter—the true center of the solar system.

Track the location of the Voyager probes, currently between 13 and 15 billion miles away from Earth.

Fritz Zwicky predicted the existence of dark matter and neutron stars

The former resulted from analyzing the motion of galaxies in the Coma Cluster, a subset of the approximately 30,000 galaxies he cataloged during his life. When hypothesizing an origin for observed high-energy particles called cosmic rays, Zwicky and colleague Walter Baade thought they could come from exploding stars, or supernovae—a term he coined—which would leave behind a collapsed star made entirely of neutrons.

Simulate the precession of Mercury's perihelion

The location of Mercury's closest point to the sun shifted in the sky at a rate of approximately 0.16 degrees per century, or 0.012 degrees more than what was predicted by Isaac Newton due to the gravity of the other planets. General relativity correctly predicted this shift.

Some stars take longer to form than the current age of the universe

The first stars only burned for millions of years, providing the universe's first heavy elements. Some in the current population will burn for trillions of years, delaying the appearance of black dwarfs and other exotic cold stars.

The big problem with the story of the moon's origins

Physics simulations predict the moon should be made mostly of the planet that struck early Earth—but lunar rocks are chemically identical to Earth's own mantle. Every proposed fix to the giant impact hypothesis, from total vaporization to multiple smaller strikes, creates a new contradiction it can't resolve. Howtown takes a nerdy look at the question in this polished 20-minute video.

One researcher posed a theory that aliens played a significant role in human evolution

Researcher Zecharia Sitchin proposed that Sumerian cuneiform tablets revealed that Sumerian gods were aliens who landed on Earth in Mesopotamia and influenced the creation of modern humans. While his ideas gained cultural interest, they are widely rejected by mainstream scholars.

Where you are located in a gravitational field affects how quickly you age

The closer something is to the center of a massive object, the greater the strength of the massive object's gravitational field as a result of space-time being depressed more severely. Time passes more slowly the deeper an object is in this gravitational depression, meaning objects in the universe naturally seek to age more slowly.

Planeterrellas create artificial auroras that mimic the atmospheric displays of light by setting up an electric field between two metal balls in a jar filled with a small amount of air.

The first image of a black hole was captured by creating an Earth-sized virtual observatory from a network of eight radio telescopes.

Most of the observable universe's volume consists of voids and supervoids—enormous regions of space with little to no galaxies, stars, or light.

While atoms are normally made of protons, neutrons, and electrons, exotic ones have been built with antimatter—alternate versions of normal matter that live for fractions of a second and are about a billion times as rare.

Explore the known asteroids, comets, and spacecraft involved in asteroid studies within our solar system with 'Eyes on Asteroids,' a 3D visualization from NASA.

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

Larger animals like giraffes, elephants, and blue whales have developed a unique defense against cancer, a phenomenon known as Peto's Paradox

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

Scientists testing how climate change affects plants found, in a years-long simulation study, that poison ivy grew 70% faster with the resulting extra carbon dioxide.

Astronauts have repaired genetic damage in space using CRISPR—a molecular tool that can make precise changes to DNA and is used in single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses.

US housing costs have risen by roughly 175% between 1991 and 2026—but a growing number of Gen Zers are becoming homeowners anyway. In 2025, 4% of homebuyers were Gen Z, up from 3% the year before.

Studies suggest when you sleep is as important as how much you get, and syncing with your circadian rhythms may lead to less fatigue and improved long-term health outcomes

Chaos theory—informally known as the butterfly effect—is the reason why weather forecasts are presented with probabilities rather than certainties.

The idea for the Federal Reserve was conceived in secret in 1910—with bankers donning duck hunt gear for disguise while traveling to a remote country club on Georgia's Jekyll Island

Coral reefs get their colors from zooxanthellae—microorganisms that line corals' digestive tracts and provide them with sugars in exchange for a home within this protective tissue.

Against his wishes, Albert Einstein's brain was removed before his cremation, and the pathologist responsible stored it for decades in mason jars within a beer cooler.

The syncytiotrophoblast is the outer layer of the placenta and the largest human cell, spanning an area about twice that of a king-sized bedsheet.

As of 2025, the most cited papers in science include a review of graphene, methods to improve image recognition, streamlining electron density calculations, and optimizing protein studies.

The term 'algorithm' originated from the Latinized name of al-Khwārizmī, a 9th-century mathematician whose works introduced Arabic numerals and the decimal-based numeral system to Europe and whose treatise 'Al-Jabr' gave algebra its name.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

In recent years a child anxiety expert has created and tested a novel phobia and anxiety treatment approach for children, focused on changing how parents respond to the fears.

'Saturday Night Fever,' the 1977 film that introduced disco to the mainstream, was based on a fabricated magazine story.

Ebola species have historically been named after where they were discovered, stigmatizing residents who live there, including Bundibugyo, in Uganda.