Astronomers struggle to understand how planets form in binary star systems. Early models suggested that the gravitational tug-of-war between two stellar bodies would send young planets into eccentric ...

An asteroid floating in our solar system has been discovered to have a very weird and unique double moon—and it might just change the way we think about how planets form. The asteroid—officially ...

It’s a contact binary, two different spherical rocks permanently touching each other and bound together by each other’s gravity. And that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg when it comes to 2014 ...

The small moon, which is the first contact-binary satellite found orbiting an asteroid, was spun off its parent space rock. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate ...

Astronomers have developed the most realistic model to date of planet formation in binary star systems. The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and the Max Planck Institute for ...

Recent studies add strong, new evidence to the theory that binary stars form when the disk of gas and dust orbiting one young star gravitationally fragments, forming a second young star. Using the new ...

Exoplanet orbits come in all shapes and sizes, and a pair of nearby stars is helping astronomers figure out why. Cockeyed disks of gas and dust that give rise to planets circle the two stars, new ...

Using ALMA, astronomers have taken a new, detailed look at the very early stages of planet formation around a binary star. Embedded in the outer reaches of a double star's protoplanetary disk, the ...