Billions of years ago, so the theory goes, something around the size of Mars smacked into Earth, spewing a whole bunch of dirt into space that eventually coalesced to form the Moon. This is called the ...

Eons ago, in the frigid depths of our solar system, a dramatic collision occurred between two icy worlds. Instead of a catastrophic smash-up, the two bodies "kissed," merging temporarily like a ...

For decades, scientists have held to the idea that the Moon was formed by a single, massive impact between Earth and a Mars-sized body known as Theia. But recent research suggests the truth might be ...

An artistic rendering of a dust and gas disk encircling the young exoplanet, CT Cha b, 625 light-years from Earth.

Using advanced models, SwRI led new research that indicates that the formation of Pluto and Charon may parallel that of the Earth-Moon system. In the resulting “kiss-and-capture” regime, Pluto and ...

A research team from the University of Göttingen and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) has discovered another piece in the puzzle of the formation of the moon and water on Earth ...

The moon may be more than 100 million years older than some scientists previously thought, according to a new study. The research, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, challenges the ...

Despite what scientists have believed for roughly half a century, the Moon might not be 4.35 billion years old. Instead, it could be about 160 million years older. New research suggests that what were ...

The moon — for all its silent loveliness — was born in violence. About 4.5 billion years ago, a planet-sized object rammed the Earth and reduced it to a bleeding molten gob of starstuff, leaking like ...

The single-stage formation theory examined by the Ames team could explain the composition and orbit in a more elegant way, and it wouldn't take months. The newly published research relies on some of ...

A researcher has used advanced models that indicate that the formation of Pluto and Charon may parallel that of the Earth-Moon system. Both systems include a moon that is a large fraction of the size ...