"During the early solar system's game of cosmic billiards, Earth was struck by a neighbor,” said Dauphas. “It was a lucky shot. Without the moon's steadying influence on our planet's tilt, the climate ...

Roughly four and a half billion years ago the planet Theia slammed into Earth, destroying Theia, melting large fractions of Earth’s mantle and ejecting a huge debris disk that later formed the moon.

Scientists from MIT and their colleagues have estimated the lifetime of the solar nebula — a key stage during which much of the solar system evolution took shape. This new estimate suggests that the ...

New research suggests that Theia, the object whose collision with Earth is theorized to have caused the formation of the moon, came from closer to the sun.

Our Solar System is believed to have formed from a cloud of gas and dust, the so-called solar nebula, which began to condense on itself gravitationally ~ 4.6 billion years ago. As this cloud ...

Moon’s precursor planet, Theia, disappeared billions ago, leaving scientists no direct chemical evidence to support the ...

When a meteor streaks across the sky, it's not just beautiful. It's nature's way of delivering a time capsule to Earth.

Scientists have captured the birth of a new solar system for the very first time. These incredible images reveal the exact moment when planets began to form around a star 1,300 light-years from Earth.

And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Sometimes, if the night is dark and clear enough, you can look up and see the Milky Way in its arc across the sky.

The solar system is 4.54 billion years old, based on rock dating. Gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn) likely formed first. Ice giants (Uranus and Neptune) probably formed next. Rocky planets formed last, ...

Several sugars have been found on a sample of the asteroid Bennu, which may provide scientists with clues about our early ...