exoplanets

The familiar concept of a planetary core, a small, dense metallic heart we take for granted, may be the exception rather than the rule for exoplanets.

Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have discovered unusual weather patterns on a giant exoplanet nearly 700 light-years away from Earth. The planet, called WASP-94A b, appears to develop thick mineral clouds every morning that disappear again by evening. The findings, published in Science, provide one of the clearest views yet of an exoplanet’s […] The post Scientists Detect Sand…

JWST has revealed a surprising daily cloud cycle on a distant hot Jupiter, giving scientists a clearer look at its atmosphere. On WASP-94A b, the forecast changes fast. Clouds made from rock-forming minerals gather in the planet’s morning skies, then vanish by evening as the atmosphere sweeps into hotter territory. This world is a hot [...]

For the first time, researchers are tracking changes in the skies of a planet hundreds of light-years away.

Life on Earth relies on energy from astrophysical sources. But what if the astrophysical source isn't a star, but a supermassive black hole and its active galactic nuclei? Life needs shelter from their powerful energy, and the only shelter is distance. New research shows that SMBH and their AGN could strip away exoplanet atmospheres and destroy their ozone at vast distances.

A Saturn-sized exoplanet with Earth-like temperatures has a methane-rich atmosphere, providing a rare glimpse into temperate gas giant chemistry.

TOI-4311 b is a super Earth exoplanet that orbits a K-type star. Its mass is 4.5 Earths, it takes 1 days to complete one orbit of its star, and is 0.01817 AU from its star. Its discovery was announced in 2026. The post TOI-4311 b appeared first on NASA Science .

TOI-4311 c is a super Earth exoplanet that orbits a K-type star. Its mass is 13.58 Earths, it takes 15.1 days to complete one orbit of its star, and is 0.1116 AU from its star. Its discovery was announced in 2026. The post TOI-4311 c appeared first on NASA Science .

XO-2 S d is a gas giant exoplanet that orbits a G-type star. Its mass is 3.71 Jupiters, it takes 12.9 years to complete one orbit of its star, and is 5.46 AU from its star. Its discovery was announced in 2024. The post XO-2 S d appeared first on NASA Science .

TOI-237 c is a super Earth exoplanet that orbits a M-type star. Its mass is 1.9 Earths, it takes 1.7 days to complete one orbit of its star, and is 0.016 AU from its star. Its discovery was announced in 2026. The post TOI-237 c appeared first on NASA Science .

Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a giant planet with an atmosphere rich in methane, offering scientists a rare look at a type of world that barely exists in our current catalog of known planets. The planet, called TOI-199b, is about the size of Saturn but has temperatures surprisingly close to those […] The post Webb Telescope finds methane-rich atmosphere on ra…

Nature Astronomy, Published online: 21 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02881-y Exoplanetary cautionary tales

Nature Astronomy, Published online: 21 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02883-w Recent advances from exoplanetary atmospheric characterization and sample return are ushering the search for life into a data-rich but more complex era. Accounting for false positives and negatives and defining the abiotic baseline will be crucial to interpreting increasingly ambiguous biosignatures.

Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have uncovered a rare world unlike anything in our solar system — a giant planet about the size of Saturn with surprisingly Earth-like temperatures and an atmosphere packed with methane. The planet, TOI-199b, sits more than 330 light-years away and is one of the first known “temperate” gas giants ever studied in detail.

Astronomers have detailed the "huge surprise" they found after looking below the clouds on a distant world. Scientists used the James Webb Space Telescope to reveal what the weather is like on a distant gas giant named WASP-94A b, nearly 700 lightyears from Earth. Their observations of the faraway planet revealed a striking atmospheric phenomenon: Every morning is cloudy, while every evening is c…

Nature, Published online: 21 May 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-01608-3 James Webb Space Telescope reveals weather patterns from how planet WASP-94 A b filters the light of its parent star.

The differences seen here could be throwing off how we study planetary atmospheres.

An out-of-this-world weather report from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals how clouds move across a giant planet hundreds of light-years from Earth