Extrasolar Planets News

September 18, 2026

Top Headlines

NASA’s Roman Space Telescope Launches to Reveal the Universe’s Darkest Secrets

Aug. 31, 2026 NASA’s Roman Space Telescope has launched on a million mile journey to L2, where it will scan huge portions of the cosmos for clues about dark matter, dark energy, and distant worlds. With survey ...

NASA’s Roman Telescope Will See 100 Times More Sky Than Hubble

Aug. 28, 2026 NASA’s Roman Space Telescope will combine Hubble-like detail with a field of view 100 times larger, giving astronomers a sweeping new way to explore the cosmos. Its observations could uncover hidden planets, map billions of cosmic objects, and ...

China’s Chang’e-6 Reveals Why Solar Wind Hits the Moon’s Two Sides Differently

July 21, 2026 China’s Chang’e-6 samples have uncovered a surprising difference between the Moon’s two hemispheres. Solar wind particles penetrated deeper into the far-side soil because Earth’s ...

A Shattered Asteroid May Have Bombarded Earth 800 Million Years Ago

July 18, 2026 A catastrophic asteroid breakup may have triggered a huge wave of impacts across the inner solar system about 800 million years ago. The debris was launched from near a gravitational gateway controlled by Jupiter, sending fragments toward Earth, the ...

Are There Aliens on Exoplanet K2-18b? Scientists Just Scanned It for Signals

July 14, 2026 K2-18b is one of the most promising worlds for the search for extraterrestrial life, so astronomers conducted an unusually powerful radio survey using both the VLA and MeerKAT telescopes. Advanced ...

The Galaxy’s Coldest “Stars” May Actually Be Alien Megastructures

July 10, 2026 Scientists have identified new clues that could help astronomers spot one of the most famous hypothetical alien megastructures: a Dyson sphere. The study finds that red dwarfs and white dwarfs are the most promising stars to examine, since advanced ...

Why Scientists Fear We're Missing Evidence of Extraterrestrial Life

June 29, 2026 Scientists are raising concerns that we may be overlooking evidence of extraterrestrial life even when it is present. Hidden biosignatures, limitations in detection technology, and assumptions about what life should look like can all create ...

Scientists Discover Towering Red Auroras Reaching Deep Into Space Above Japan

May 21, 2026 Mysterious red auroras spotted over Japan were found reaching astonishingly high altitudes, even during space storms considered relatively mild. The discovery suggests hidden solar activity may be ...

NASA’s Roman Space Telescope Could Reveal Millions of Invisible Neutron Stars

May 15, 2026 NASA’s Roman Space Telescope could expose a vast hidden population of neutron stars lurking unseen across the Milky Way. By detecting subtle shifts in starlight caused by gravity, the mission may ...

Powerful AI Finds 100+ Hidden Planets in NASA Data Including Rare and Extreme Worlds

May 3, 2026 Astronomers have unleashed a powerful new AI tool called RAVEN to comb through data from NASA’s TESS mission—and it’s paying off in a big way. By analyzing millions of stars, the system has ...

NASA Launches Twin Spacecraft to Solve the Mystery of Mars’ Lost Atmosphere

Mar. 14, 2026 Mars didn’t always look like the barren world we see today. Over billions of years, the Sun’s solar wind stripped away much of its atmosphere, helping transform it from a warmer, wetter planet ...

Subaru Telescope Reveals a Hidden Giant Planet

Dec. 22, 2025 Astronomers have uncovered a massive hidden planet and a rare “failed star” by combining ultra-precise space data with some of the sharpest ground-based images ever taken. Using the Subaru Telescope in Hawaiʻi, the OASIS survey tracked subtle ...

Latest Headlines

updated 9:33am EDT

Astronomers Just Found the Youngest Known Planet Ever

Sep. 17, 2026 Astronomers have confirmed a Jupiter-size planet less than a million years old, making Elias 2-24 b the youngest known planet and giving scientists a rare look at a world still being born. Its ...

JWST’s Mysterious Little Red Dots May Be Black Holes Growing at Incredible Speeds

Sep. 17, 2026 New supercomputer simulations suggest JWST’s puzzling Little Red Dots are rapidly growing black holes from the early Universe. Extreme radiation ...

Venus May Have Swallowed Its Own Moon

Sep. 16, 2026 Venus may have once had a moon, but new research suggests the planet’s incredibly slow rotation could have doomed it. Computer simulations showed that instead of gradually drifting away like ...

Scientists “truly Astonished” by Discovery That Challenges Earth’s Origin Story

Sep. 16, 2026 A new study suggests Earth formed almost entirely from material in the inner Solar System, challenging the idea that water-rich material from beyond ...

James Webb Reveals Chariklo’s Mysterious Rings Are Changing Faster Than Expected

Sep. 15, 2026 The James Webb Space Telescope has revealed surprising changes in the rings around Chariklo, a small object orbiting between Saturn and Uranus. Over ...

The Moon May Have Formed Intact Just Hours After a Giant Collision

Sep. 10, 2026 Scientists have discovered that the Moon-forming collision may have depended heavily on how hot and physically strong early Earth and Theia were. New simulations found that some impacts create the ...

Have We Found Alien Life? Hundreds of Scientists Weigh in

Sep. 9, 2026 Two major alien-life announcements in 2025 generated enormous excitement, but most astrobiologists remained unconvinced. Only 6.6% of surveyed experts thought possible biological molecules on K2-18b ...

Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Is Bursting With Methanol

Sep. 9, 2026 Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS contains exceptionally high levels of methanol, suggesting it formed under conditions very different from those that shaped most comets in our solar system. ALMA also ...

The Universe Has Plenty of Hydrogen. So Why Is Star Formation Collapsing?

Sep. 3, 2026 Star formation across the universe has fallen dramatically over the past 4.5 billion years, but astronomers have uncovered a surprising twist: the supply of neutral hydrogen, a key ingredient for ...

Earth May Have Lost the Sun’s Protective Shield Millions of Years Ago

Sep. 2, 2026 NASA-funded studies suggest Earth’s climate has been influenced by both the Sun’s travels through dense regions of the Milky Way and the violent superflares of its youth. Those events may help ...

JWST Finds Early Galaxies May Be 4 Times More Massive Than Thought

Aug. 22, 2026 Astronomers using JWST have discovered that massive early galaxies contain far more small, faint stars than expected. That hidden population could make some of these galaxies three to four times more ...

Black Holes Keep Tearing These Stars Apart, but They Survive

Aug. 23, 2026 Astronomers have found stars that repeatedly skim past supermassive black holes, surviving each encounter while producing a new burst of light. In some systems, those flares mysteriously fade with ...

Rocky Planets May Have Formed Just 100 Million Years After the Big Bang

Aug. 31, 2026 Rocky planets may have been able to start forming just 100 million years after the Big Bang, thanks to enormous early supernovae that scattered planet-building elements across space. Simulations ...

JWST Spots a Bizarre “black Hole Star” 100 Billion Times Brighter Than a Star

Aug. 13, 2026 Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a bizarre object from just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang that looks like an enormous star but shines far too brightly ...

The Sun Is Covered in Tiny Whirlpools We’ve Never Seen Before

Aug. 8, 2026 Scientists have discovered incredibly tiny plasma whirlpools swirling across the Sun’s surface, some just 20 kilometers wide. These previously invisible vortices may twist magnetic fields and help ...

A Massive New Cosmic Map Is Revealing Black Holes, Rare Stars, and Hidden Gas

Aug. 14, 2026 Astronomers have released more than three million new spectra in a sweeping expansion that, for the first time, brings SDSS-V optical observations to the Southern Hemisphere. The data reveal ...

Giant Waves Are Sweeping Mars’ Atmosphere Into Space

Aug. 3, 2026 The solar wind may be stripping away Mars’ atmosphere by creating giant rolling waves along its outer edge. Data from MAVEN and Tianwen-1 show that these waves form plasma clouds that carry ...

Webb’s Mysterious Little Red Dots May Be Hiding Entire Galaxies

Aug. 17, 2026 Astronomers may finally have a clue to what happens to the mysterious “little red dots” that crowded the early universe. By studying a spiral galaxy nicknamed the “Saguaro,” researchers found ...

Neptune’s Tiny Moons May Be the Wreckage of Shattered Ancient Worlds

Aug. 14, 2026 JWST has uncovered surprising clues that Neptune’s strange inner moons may be the wreckage of an ancient cosmic catastrophe. Researchers detected clay-like minerals on Larissa, Galatea, and ...

“I Jumped from My Chair” – Astronomers Spot Betelgeuse’s Hidden Companion

Aug. 27, 2026 Astronomers have captured their clearest image yet of Betelgeuse’s long-suspected companion, potentially ending a search that lasted about 100 years. The surprisingly massive hidden star could help ...

A Star’s Violent Death Exposed a Hidden Supermassive Black Hole

Aug. 6, 2026 A supermassive black hole has been found lurking about 30,000 light-years from the center of its galaxy—the first dormant black hole detected so far from a galactic core. It revealed itself only ...

A Hidden “switch-Off” Signal Could Predict Solar Storms Seven Years Early

July 21, 2026 A newly discovered turning point in the Sun’s 11-year cycle could allow scientists to predict future solar activity years earlier than before. At this “switch-off” point, the most violent space ...

Scientists Discover the Sun Contains 55% More Silver Than Expected

July 24, 2026 A new analysis suggests the Sun holds far more silver than earlier estimates indicated. More advanced models of the solar atmosphere raised the calculated amount by 55 percent, bringing it into much ...

Astronomers Find the First Atmosphere on a Rocky World in the Habitable Zone

July 21, 2026 Astronomers have found the first confirmed atmosphere around a rocky planet in another star’s habitable zone. The planet, LHS 1140 b, revealed its atmosphere through helium slowly leaking into ...

NASA’s Webb Telescope Discovers Giant Planet Hiding in One of Astronomy’s Most Famous Systems

July 23, 2026 A giant planet had been hiding inside one of astronomy’s most closely studied planetary systems, concealed by a bright disk of cosmic dust. Webb revealed Beta Pictoris d through atmospheric traces ...

Astronomers Just Found Four Hidden White Dwarf Stars Near Earth

July 15, 2026 Four nearby white dwarf stars have been discovered hiding in plain sight beside brighter red dwarf companions. Hubble's ultraviolet observations finally revealed the long-hidden stellar ...

NASA Celebrates America's 250th Birthday With Incredible Views of Space

July 4, 2026 NASA is marking the United States' 250th birthday with four striking red, white, and blue images of deep space from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The collection features an exploded star, a ...

Astronomers Found Two Rare Super Puff Planets Lighter Than Cotton Candy

June 26, 2026 Two newly confirmed "super-puff" planets are so diffuse that they are less dense than cotton candy, despite being about the size of Jupiter. Their rare orbital relationship and enormous, ...

James Webb Uncovers Exotic Salt Clouds on a Mysterious Pink World

June 28, 2026 Astronomers have finally cracked the mystery of the famous “Pink Planet,” a strange world 57 light-years away that has puzzled scientists for more than a decade. Using the James Webb Space ...

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Reveals a Strange Atmosphere on a Hellish Lava Planet

July 15, 2026 NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has revealed new details about the blistering lava planet 55 Cancri e, where temperatures are high enough to melt rock. The data indicate the planet likely has ...