This not-so-little piece of equipment could change astronomy forever. And it could be about to find alien life. Maybe in a ...

Alien solar systems that are home to so-called "hot Jupiters" — gas giants circling sizzlingly close to their stars — are unlikely homes for Earth-like planets, researchers say. Hot Jupiters get their ...

When astronomers announced Kepler-452b, they were not just adding another distant world to a growing catalog. They were pointing to a planet that orbits a star much like our own, in a region where ...

Planets orbiting stars beyond the solar system come in all shapes and sizes but mostly fit into a few categories: large and hot gas giants, super-Earths that are slightly larger than our planet, ...