Learn how to solve and verify Kepler’s Third Law for circular orbits. This video walks through the physics and mathematics connecting orbital period, radius, and gravitational force, showing how ...

How does a planet’s size influence its orbit around its parent star? This is what a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences hopes to address as a team of ...

Perihelion is the point at which an orbiting body is closest to the sun. The word comes from Greek and literally means around ...

Studying the orbits of thousands of exoplanets shows that large planets tend to have elliptical orbits, while smaller planets tend to have more circular orbits. This split coincides with several other ...

EVANSTON, Ill. — Except for the fact that we call it home, for centuries astronomers didn’t have any particular reason to believe that our solar system was anything special in the universe. But, ...

For centuries, the solar system was viewed as a standard blueprint for planetary systems in the universe, with a star (our Sun) at the center of a circular track, and a planet orbiting within each ...

The type of orbit an exoplanet occupies could result in astronomers missing out on possible radio transmissions coming from the planet. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an ...