Short-lived radioisotopes such as aluminum-26 influenced early solar system heat, water retention and the formation of Earth-like rocky planets, according to meteorite analyses and models.

To reproduce the orbits and masses of the terrestrial planets (analogs) of the solar system, most studies scrutinize simulations for success as a batch. However, there is insufficient discussion in ...

New work from Carnegie’s Alan Boss offers a potential solution to a longstanding problem in the prevailing theory of how rocky planets formed in our own solar system, as well as in others. The snag he ...

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has scored another first, detecting evidence of water in a planet-forming disc circling another star where at least two terrestrial-class proto-planets seem to be ...

Artistic concept of the PDS 70 disk. JWST observations detected water in the inner disk, where normally terrestrial planets form. Two gas giant planets carved a wide gap in the disk made of gas and ...

Best chance of finding liquid water, and even life on other planets, is to look for the absence of carbon dioxide in their atmospheres. Scientists at MIT, the University of Birmingham, and elsewhere ...

A new theory could explain the origin and properties of systems of rocky super-Earths and their relationship with the terrestrial planets of the solar system. A new theory for how rocky planets form ...