"What surprised us, at the end, was how effective this type of impact could be in explaining Mercury's unusual structure ...

Large and small planets are born from very different circumstances, according to data from NASA’s now-retired space telescope ...

Now, four small planets have been found orbiting the star. Teams in America and Europe achieved this challenging detection by exploiting precision instruments on the world's largest telescopes.

Terrestrial planets include Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. These planets are relatively small in size and in mass. A terrestrial planet has a solid rocky surface, with metals deep in its interior.

Whether or not the evolution of the planets and moons in the Solar System is typical for their class of objects is still unknown. A key element of this research theme is the search for small, ...