Astronomers studying extreme planetary systems have identified worlds so massive that they rival the smallest stars in size.

Stars twinkle in the night sky, even millions of light-years away, because they are incredibly hot. Planets are much cooler. In between, brown dwarfs are an astronomical enigma: More massive than ...

A ravenous rogue planet has been caught eating 6 billion tonnes of gas and dust per second. This behaviour blurs the line between planets and stars, suggesting both can form in similar ways. Rogue ...

A newly discovered star system is breaking records — and helping scientists unravel the mysteries of an extreme type of planet known as hot Jupiters. In a paper published Aug. 14 in the journal Nature ...

For the first time — and in our own Milky Way galaxy — scientists were able to watch in real time as a dying star sucked a “Jupiter-sized world” into its blazing core. The stunning act of celestial ...

Jess Thomson is a Newsweek Science Reporter based in London UK. Her focus is reporting on science, technology and healthcare. She has covered weird animal behavior, space news and the impacts of ...