In the swirling clouds of gas and dust that surround newborn stars, planets begin to form. These planet-forming disks are rich with clues about how worlds like Earth come to be. Until now, scientists ...

Some planets might produce their own water instead of relying on outside sources. In laboratory experiments, researchers simulated extreme conditions found within certain exoplanets by blasting ...

For years, astronomers have believed that water-rich planets could only form beyond a system’s “snow line,” the region where icy materials condense during planet formation. Yet a recent Nature study ...