
JWST Spies a Giant Space Hamburger—and Maybe Planetary Origins, Too
It’s neither fast nor food, but a spectacular object called HH 30 looks appetizing for astronomers in a new image from the James Webb Space Telescope
JWST Spies a Giant Space Hamburger—and Maybe Planetary Origins, Too
It’s neither fast nor food, but a spectacular object called HH 30 looks appetizing for astronomers in a new image from the James Webb Space Telescope
Nearby Habitable-Zone Exoplanet May Be a World of Fire and Ice
A newly confirmed exoplanet around a nearby sunlike star might be astronomers’ best chance yet to look for life beyond the solar system—but it’s still no place like home
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Famous Star Hasn’t Formed Planets, and We Don’t Know Why
The nearby star Vega, featured in the 1997 movie Contact, appears to have a smooth disk devoid of giant planets for reasons we can’t explain
Fastest Known Planetary System Might Have Been Pushed by Our Galaxy’s Supermassive Black Hole
This blazingly fast star is shooting through the Milky Way with a planet in tow
JWST Images Freezing Giant Exoplanet 12 Light-Years Away
The Jupiter-like world Epsilon Indi Ab is one of the coldest—and closest—exoplanets that astronomers have ever seen
The Strangest Alien Worlds Are beyond Astronomers’ Wildest Dreams
Alien worlds that glow like lightbulbs or harbor molten-rock rain are revealing planets’ profound cosmic diversity—and pointing the way toward finding those that truly resemble our own familiar Earth
This Hellish Alien World’s Skies May Create an Eerie Rainbow ‘Glory’ Effect
The atmosphere of exoplanet WASP-76b may rain iron and form a strange, rainbow-like phenomenon called a “glory” never yet seen outside the solar system
‘Interstellar’ Meteor Signal May Have Been a Truck—So What Was Collected from the Ocean Floor?
New analyses cast doubt on claims that a meteor witnessed over the South Pacific in 2014 came from another star system and raise questions about a high-profile expedition to recover the fireball’s fragments from the seafloor
Astronomers Are Snapping Baby Pictures of Planets by the Dozen
Snapshots of a plethora of planet-forming disks offer more than just eye candy—they also reveal some fundamental aspects of how worlds are born
JWST Will Finally Hunt for Alien Moons—And Much More
The next year of science for the James Webb Space Telescope has been selected. It includes remote galaxy observations and, at last, a hunt for exomoons
JWST Is Tracking Down the Cosmic Origins of Earth’s Water
New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope are exposing the pathways that water takes to reach terrestrial planets
When We Find Earth 2.0, What’s Next?
We’re looking for another Earth. But how likely is it that we’ll find a duplicate of home?