Who determined that the sun was a star, like the stars in the nighttime sky? Mike Curtiss West Richland, Washington No single astronomer had this realization. Prominent thinkers considered the ...

Last year, astronomers announced that a planet orbits Barnard’s star. Now, researchers have confirmed the existence of three more.

Now, four small planets have been found orbiting ... Diminutive Barnard's Star is closer in size to Jupiter than to the sun. Only the three stars that make up the Alpha Centauri system lie closer ...

The core of a star reaches temperatures—energy levels, really—we don't see anywhere else outside fusion reactors. The visible surface layer of the Sun, called the photosphere, is a toasty ...

The Solar System was formed around 4.6 billion years ago from a giant cloud called a nebula, mainly made up of hydrogen gas and dust. The nebula collapsed under its own gravity and, as it did ...

Proxima Centauri's small size and strong ... is likely convective—unlike the sun, which has both convective and nonconvective layers. As a result, the star is much more active.