Way out there in the Milky Way, and far beyond our own solar system, astronomers have snapped the first direct photographs of more planets flying in orbits around their own distant stars.

Habitable zone planets (from left to right) Kepler-69c, Kepler-62e and Kepler-62f are shown here to scale relative to Earth. A total of 715 new planets were recently found in our region of the ...

An artist's illustration of the mega-Earth planet Kepler-10c, the"Godzilla of Earths" planet that is 2.3 times the size of Earth and 17 times heavier. The planet and its lava-world sibling Kepler ...

This artist's impression shows the planet orbiting the star Alpha Centauri B, a member of the triple star system that is the closest to Earth in this image released on Oct.17, 2012. Alpha Centauri ...

But the existence of the planet wasn't confirmed until the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope captured the new pictures in 2009. Crucially, The 2009 images show the young planet ...

Scientists may have caught the first-ever pictures ... planet being born around a young star, using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT). The stunning images ...

and astronomers say this is the strongest evidence yet that planets could exist beyond the solar system and may even be common. Examining the pictures, astronomers said Wednesday, was like looking ...

On this page are pictures all the exoplanets ... and was formally announced as a planet in 2008. However, it’s somewhat controversial: Subsequent observations show it may actually be a clump ...

Twitter users have posted photos of Mars and Venus appearing close together in the night sky after the two planets were in conjunction. On Tuesday, Earth's two closest planetary neighbours nestled ...