Alpha Centauri, part of the three-star system closet to our own, is often posed in science fiction as humanity's first hop ...

Scientists have found strong evidence of a giant gas planet in the nearest star system to our own. At four-and-a-half light ...

A giant planet may be orbiting the nearest Sun-like star to Earth, and the discovery is sparking excitement across the ...

The confirmation of the gas giant planet would mark a milestone as the closest planet to Earth that orbits in a habitable ...

NASA artist's depiction of an extra-solar system crowded with giant planets. Scientists have found that the presence of gas giants in a solar system is likely to prevent life from forming.

A gas giant is a large planet that is not primarily composed of rock or other solid matter. Gas giants may have a rocky or metallic core—in fact, such a core is thought to be required for a gas ...

But not every gas giant is so lucky; some of them should be too close to their parent stars, where their volatile gas atmospheres are boiled away. Here’s what’s left behind.

The differences with our local gas giant—larger radius but smaller mass—are probably a result of the small distance between NGTS-1b and its star, which heats and expands the gas of the planet.