Context. As a star evolves, the planet orbits change with time due to tidal interactions, stellar mass losses, friction and gravitational drag forces, mass accretion and evaporation on/by the planet.

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 ...

Tracking the rotation speed of solid planets, like the Earth and Mars, is a relatively simple task: Just measure the time it takes for a surface feature to roll into view again. But giant gas planets ...

Every planet in our solar system is essentially round. But out in the universe, are there any planets that aren't spherical? Technically, planets are round, by definition; they need to have enough ...

Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have measured the rotation rate of an extreme exoplanet by observing the varied brightness in its atmosphere. This is the first measurement of the ...

The planets within our solar system are in constant motion in their orbits and as they spin on their axes. All planets in our solar system revolve around the Sun. But the time they take to complete ...

We have all been taught in school that planets revolve in the same direction as the Earth, i.e., in the counterclockwise direction. However, the universe never ceases to amaze us with its unexpected ...

An instantaneous cessation of Earth's rotation would result in catastrophic, planet-wide devastation due to the inertia of objects on the surface moving at high speeds (approximately 1000 mph at the ...