Earth on Tuesday made its closest approach to the sun, an annual celestial event that happens to occur at the start of the new year. The planet follows an elliptical orbit around the sun, rather than ...

A newly discovered exoplanet three times bigger than Jupiter has been discovered orbiting its star in a bizarre, elliptical orbit, slingshot-style — and astronomers are excited. While elliptical ...

Studying the orbits of thousands of exoplanets shows that large planets tend to have elliptical orbits, while smaller planets tend to have more circular orbits. This split coincides with several other ...

Earth’s annual orbit around the Sun is not always perfectly circular; instead, it displays variations in what is known as eccentricity — in which the planet’s orbit varies between a more-circular and ...