Scientists have discovered the strongest evidence yet of a rocky planet with an atmosphere outside the solar system, challenging previous notions that small planets that orbit closely to their stars are unable to sustain a thick blanket of gases. TOI-561 b orbits a 10-billion-year-old star located about 280 light-years from Earth and has a vast […]
Hungry Rogue Planet Is Gobbling Gas and Dust at 6 Billion Tons per Second
Rogue planets live by their own rules, freely floating through the cosmos without being bound to a star. With no stellar supervision, those isolated planetary bodies can often behave in unusual ways. Astronomers discovered a rogue planet experiencing a rather unusual growth spurt, bingeing on its surrounding gas and dust at an unprecedented rate. The […]
The Coldest Planet Ever Seen Is Circling a Stellar Corpse
Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have directly detected the faint glow of a planet that’s colder than any world whose light has been directly observed—an astonishing detection that reveals the extreme conditions of some worlds in our universe. The exoplanet, WD 1856+534 b, was first spotted in 2020 and is twice as old […]
Rare Exoplanet Orbits Two Stars at a Wild 90-Degree Angle
In 2018, astronomers discovered a pair of brown dwarf stars orbiting each other in a rare system known as an eclipsing binary. Further observations show that the binary, named 2M1510, is even more unique than previously believed. Researchers are reporting the discovery of an exoplanet, named 2M1510 (AB) b, orbiting its host star at an […]
Did Scientists Detect Life on Another Planet? Experts Weigh in on Bombshell Biosignature Report
Last week, researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) announced they had found something intriguing on a distant exoplanet called K2-18 b: a potential whiff of dimethyl sulfide (DMS), a molecule that, on Earth, is produced almost exclusively by microscopic marine life. The exoplanet, located about 120 light-years away, orbits within the habitable zone […]
Webb Telescope Reveals Astronomers Got It All Wrong About This Dying Planet
Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope just gave a cosmic mystery a serious plot twist. The event in question—a sudden brightening from a star about 12,000 light-years away—was initially chalked up to the star swelling into a red giant and engulfing a nearby planet, a typical tale in some star systems. But not this […]
Astronomers Confirm 4 Rocky Exoplanets in Earth’s Backyard, Just 6 Light-Years Away
Astronomers have identified four exoplanets orbiting Barnard’s Star, a red dwarf star just 6 light-years away from Earth. No, really, this time it’s for real! We have to emphasize this because astronomers have been “discovering” exoplanets orbiting Barnard’s Star—and then discovering they were wrong—for a century. “Exoplanet” is the technical term for planet-like bodies beyond […]
First 3D Map of an Exoplanet’s Atmosphere Reveals Bizarre Weather
Astronomers have uncovered the secrets of an alien atmosphere on an exoplanet far beyond our Solar System, and it’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. In a scientific first, an international team of astronomers has 3D mapped the atmosphere of planet WASP-121b, also known as Tylos. Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (yes, […]
Astronomers Track a Runaway Star and Its Planet Traveling at Hyperspeed
A small star and its orbiting planet are flying through the Milky Way at record pace, according to a NASA team’s analysis of the object. The system is believed to be traveling at least 1.2 million miles per hour (1.93 million kilometers per hour), according to a NASA release, which would make the exoplanet the […]
First-Ever Documented Supersonic Winds Are Ripping Through This Exoplanet
The farthest planet from the Sun, Neptune, is the windiest place in the solar system, with winds that whip through at speeds reaching more than 0.3 miles per second (0.5 kilometers per second). That’s a relatively pleasant wind speed compared to a giant, puffy planet located around 500 lightyears away from Earth. Supersonic winds on […]