planets

(Newser) - This month, Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter will take part in a series of what Space.com calls "celestial summit meetings." The four planets will converge twice to form a "trio," defined as an instance when three planets fit in a circle with a minimum 5-degree...

(Newser) - Exciting news for alien enthusiasts: The discovery by NASA scientists of a vast trove of Earth-like planets orbiting distant suns boosts our chances of finding extraterrestrial life. Findings from the Kepler telescope revealed that for every two stars in the universe, one has an Earth-like "candidate planet" orbiting it,...

(Newser) - Scientists have spotted five new planets orbiting stars in our galaxy that are close to the size of Earth and are located in a "habitable zone," according to researchers. They're the right distance from their stars that make the existence of life-essential liquid water possible. The planets are...