An artist’s impression of the stellar dimming event caused by a brown dwarf or super-Jupiter with massive rings (foreground) forming an opaque “saucer” through which some light from the star ...

Brown dwarfs are the weird middle-ground of space - not a planet, but not a real star either. They’re massive enough to “smolder,” but not powerful enough to fully ignite like the stars we’re used to.

James is a published author with multiple pop-history and science books to his name. He specializes in history, space, strange science, and anything out of the ordinary.View full profile James is a ...

For the first time, astronomers have confirmed the existence of a rogue planet, one that doesn’t orbit a star, by measuring both its mass and distance. The planet, roughly the size of Saturn, was ...

In context: NASA estimates that a single galaxy may harbor trillions of rogue planets. These starless worlds drift alone through interstellar space and have no parent star. They remain challenging to ...

Planets are usually defined by the star they orbit. Take away the star, and a planet becomes almost impossible to find. This is because almost every method astronomers use to detect planets depends on ...

Astronomers have detected a massive, lonely world drifting through the darkness without a star to call home. This Saturn-sized rogue planet was discovered by an international team of scientists using ...

Astronomers have detected a rogue planet with a mass equivalent to that of Saturn, and by taking observations from both the ground and space, they have also been able to measure its size and distance ...

Nearly 10,000 light years away, a planet the size of Saturn is floating all on its own through empty space. In a stroke of luck, researchers were able to spot this strange, dark world using both ...