In August 2025, skywatchers will be treated to a planet parade like no other, with six planets and the Moon visible in the ...

Once upon a time, Earth may have sported a planetary ring of its very own. The hypothetical ring didn't last long, cosmically speaking – just a few tens of millions of years. But that was long enough ...

Rings have formed in the solar system around massive planets like Saturn and Uranus, but also dwarf planets, and at distances from the planet previously thought to be impossible.

Noted philosopher Beyoncé once said, "If you liked it, then you should've put a ring on it." We're back out in space for this week's Moment of Science, discovering how we get rings around some ...

"We will never witness the formation of Earth, but here, around a young star 440 light-years away, we may be watching a ...

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Left to right: Saturn, Uranus, and Jupiter show off their rings for various NASA spacecraft ...

Only a handful of the planets in our solar system sport planetary rings and various theories encompass their formation. Nevertheless, planetary scientists admit that we have very little understanding ...

S. Charnoz, R. M. Canup, A. Crida, L. Dones(Submitted on 28 Mar 2017) This chapter of the book Planetary Ring Systems addresses the origin of planetary rings, one of the […] ...

Saturn's rings are long thought to be up to 400 million years old but new data finds they could be around 4.5 billion years old. ... when planetary formation and migration were at their peak.

As children, we learned about our solar system’s planets by certain characteristics — Jupiter is the largest, Saturn has rings, Mercury is closest to the sun. Mars is red, but it’s possible that one ...

“Planetary rings will naturally spread or disperse over time,” said Amanda Sickafoose, an astronomer at the Planetary Science Institute and the study’s lead author, in an institute release.

When Larry Esposito says, “Rings are forever,” he’s not talking about ones made with diamonds. He’s referring to rings composed of ice crystals and dust — rings that encircle worlds, not ...