"During the early solar system's game of cosmic billiards, Earth was struck by a neighbor,” said Dauphas. “It was a lucky shot. Without the moon's steadying influence on our planet's tilt, the climate ...

An artistic rendering of a dust and gas disk encircling the young exoplanet, CT Cha b, 625 light-years from Earth. Spectroscopic data from NASA’s JWST suggest the disk contains the raw materials for ...

The largest and oldest crater on the moon did not form as we initially suspected, a new study suggests. The findings hint that a specific region of the lunar surface could be more scientifically ...

Scientists continue to explore the deep story of how Earth and the moon formed. One idea has gained attention because it pushes us to imagine the planet in its earliest and wildest days.

The moon's orbit isn't a perfect circle. Instead, it's more stretched out, kind of like an oval, which means its distance from Earth varies by about 30,000 miles (48,000 km). The surface of the moon ...

The moon was formed 4.5 billion years ago in a "giant impact" that left Earth with a two-hour day, according to new research. Scientists have long debated the circumstances which led to the formation ...

Over 4.6 billion years ago, Earth took shape from a spinning cloud of dust and gas surrounding the young sun. Tiny particles within this cloud collided and clumped together, driven by gravity and ...

Even though humans have pondered the moon since the first of us looked skyward, there is still much we still don’t know about it. One of these unsolved questions is its origin story. We think the moon ...

This composite image of Pluto, right, and Charon, its largest moon, showcases photos captured by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft in July 2015. Credit: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI Unlike how scientists believe ...

The story of how the Moon came to be has always carried a touch of mystery. Picture the young Solar System as a restless place where new worlds grew from swirling gas, dust, and rock. In that chaotic ...

In the summer of 2024, a robotic mission landed for the first time on the far side of the Moon. The Chinese Chang’e-6 lander planted a flag, dug up more than four pounds of rock and soil, and brought ...