The Milky Way keeps its planets close to its chest. Stars in a thin, flat disk bisecting the galaxy have more planets on average than stars in a thicker, enveloping disk — and astronomers now think ...

Astronomers are pulling back the hazy veil on the Milky Way's most common—and arguably most mysterious—type of planet: so-called sub-Neptunes. Not seen among the planets of our solar system, these are ...

Our search for exoplanets is focused on Milky Way stars. It's been successful, with more than 6,000 detected so far. Scientists are even beginning to move beyond mere detections, and working on ...

Astronomers at the University of Auckland claim that there are actually around 100 billion habitable, Earth-like planets in the Milky Way. There are roughly 500 billion galaxies in the universe, ...