Some of the most promising places to look for extraterrestrials have remained, so far, mostly hidden from astronomers. Now a game-changing instrument called NIRPS (Near-Infrared Planet Searcher) is ...

Scientists may have found the first planet ever detected around our closest “solar twin,” a star called Alpha Centauri A, the same real-life star that was home to the fictional moon Pandora in James ...

The closest exoplanets to the Solar System are around the red dwarf Proxima Centauri. This little star is orbiting two bigger Sun-like stars, which are known as Alpha Centauri A and B. For over a ...

Every year in early January, Earth reaches the closest point in its orbit to the Sun, a moment astronomers call perihelion.

For a century, astronomers have been studying Barnard’s Star in the hope of finding planets around it. Excited scientists have found three more planets around Barnard’s Star, the second-nearest star ...

Ageing stars may be destroying the giant planets orbiting closest to them, according to a new study by astronomers at UCL (University College London) and the University of Warwick. Once stars like the ...