Extrasolar Planets News

November 18, 2025

Top Headlines

JWST Captures Stunning 3D View of a Planet’s Scorching Atmosphere

Nov. 2, 2025 A team of astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to create the first 3D atmospheric map of an exoplanet. The fiery WASP-18b, a massive “ultra-hot Jupiter,” revealed striking temperature contrasts, including regions so hot they destroy ...

AI Restores James Webb Telescope’s Crystal-clear Vision

Oct. 27, 2025 Two Sydney PhD students have pulled off a remarkable space science feat from Earth—using AI-driven software to correct image blurring in NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Their innovation, called AMIGO, fixed distortions in the telescope’s ...

Astronomers Just Captured the Sharpest View of a Distant Star Ever Seen

Oct. 25, 2025 A UCLA-led team has achieved the sharpest-ever view of a distant star’s disk using a groundbreaking photonic lantern device on a single telescope—no multi-telescope array required. This technology splits incoming starlight into multiple ...

Harvard Astrophysicist Suggests Mysterious Interstellar Object May Be an Alien Probe

Oct. 15, 2025 3I/ATLAS, a mysterious interstellar object racing toward the Sun, is baffling scientists with its speed and origin. Some researchers suggest it could even be alien-made, drawing comparisons to probes ...

The Sun’s Hidden Poles Could Finally Reveal Its Greatest Secrets

Oct. 14, 2025 High above the Sun’s blazing equator lie its mysterious poles, the birthplace of fast solar winds and the heart of its magnetic heartbeat. For decades, scientists have struggled to see these regions, hidden from Earth’s orbit. With the upcoming ...

NASA Spacecraft Detect a Mysterious Force Shaping the Solar Wind

Sep. 11, 2025 NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission has uncovered surprising behavior of pickup ions drifting through the solar wind near Earth. These particles, once thought to be minor players, appear capable of generating waves and influencing how the ...

A Star Torn Apart by a Black Hole Lit Up the Universe Twice

Aug. 22, 2025 Astronomers using AI have captured a once-in-a-lifetime cosmic event: a massive star’s violent death triggered by its black hole companion. The explosion, known as SN 2023zkd, not only produced a brilliant supernova but also shocked scientists by ...

Mojave Lichen Defies Death Rays—could Life Thrive on Distant Exoplanets?

June 24, 2025 Lichen from the Mojave Desert has stunned scientists by surviving months of lethal UVC radiation, suggesting life could exist on distant planets orbiting volatile stars. The secret? A microscopic “sunscreen” layer that protects their vital ...

Millions of New Solar System Objects to Be Found and 'Filmed in Technicolor' -- Studies Predict

June 3, 2025 Astronomers have revealed new research showing that millions of new solar system objects are likely to be detected by a brand-new facility, which is expected to come online later this ...

Particles Energized by Magnetic Reconnection in the Nascent Solar Wind

June 3, 2025 Scientists have identified a new source of energetic particles near the Sun. These definitive observations were made by instruments aboard NASA's Parker Solar Probe, which detected the powerful phenomena as the spacecraft dipped in and out of the ...

Webb Reveals the Surprising Origin of Ultra-hot Exoplanet WASP-121b

June 2, 2025 WASP-121b may have been born in a frozen zone and later migrated into its current inferno-like orbit. A surprise discovery of methane in the wrong place suggests intense vertical winds are reshaping how we understand planetary ...

Scientists Discover New Evidence of Intermediate-mass Black Holes

May 30, 2025 A series of studies sheds light on the origins and characteristics of intermediate-mass black ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:10am EST

Astronomers Unveil the Surprising Hidden Geometry of a Supernova

Nov. 16, 2025 Astronomers have, for the first time, recorded the moment a star’s explosion broke through its surface. The nearby supernova, SN 2024ggi, revealed a surprisingly olive-shaped blast when studied ...

Astronomers Discover Thousands of Hidden Siblings of the “Seven Sisters”

Nov. 16, 2025 The “Seven Sisters” have far more relatives than anyone imagined. Using NASA and ESA space telescopes, astronomers found thousands of hidden ...

Astronomers Spot a Rare Planet-Stripping Eruption on a Nearby Star

Nov. 14, 2025 Scientists have finally confirmed a powerful coronal mass ejection from another star, using LOFAR radio data paired with XMM-Newton’s X-ray insights. The eruption blasted into space at ...

Nearby Super-Earth May Be Our Best Chance Yet to Find Alien Life

Nov. 13, 2025 A newly detected super-Earth just 20 light-years away is giving scientists one of the most promising chances yet to search for life beyond our solar system. The discovery of the exoplanet orbiting in ...

Jupiter’s Wild Youth May Have Reshaped the Entire Solar System

Nov. 13, 2025 Simulations reveal that Jupiter’s rapid growth disrupted the early solar system, creating rings where new planetesimals formed much later than expected. These late-forming bodies match the ages and ...

NASA's Webb Finds Life’s Building Blocks Frozen in a Galaxy Next Door

Nov. 12, 2025 Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have uncovered a trove of complex organic molecules frozen in ice around a young star in a neighboring galaxy — including the first-ever detection ...

Astronomers Stunned by Three Earth-Sized Planets Orbiting Two Suns

Nov. 12, 2025 Scientists have identified three Earth-sized planets orbiting two stars in the TOI-2267 system. Remarkably, planets transit around both stars — a first in astronomy. The system’s compact, cold ...

Astronomers Just Solved the Mystery of “impossible” Black Holes

Nov. 11, 2025 New simulations suggest magnetic fields hold the key to forming black holes that defy known mass limits. When powerful magnetic forces act on a collapsing, spinning star, they eject vast amounts of ...

A Neutron Star’s Weird Wind Rewrites Space Physics

Nov. 10, 2025 XRISM’s observations of GX13+1 revealed a slow, fog-like wind instead of the expected high-speed blast, challenging existing models of radiation-driven outflows. The discovery hints that ...

Astronomers Shocked by Mysterious Gas Found in Deep Space

Nov. 9, 2025 Astronomers have discovered phosphine gas in the atmosphere of an ancient brown dwarf, Wolf 1130C, using the James Webb Space Telescope. The finding is puzzling because phosphine, a potential ...

Astronomers Discover Dying Stars Eating Their Planets

Nov. 6, 2025 Astronomers have discovered that aging stars may be devouring their closest giant planets as they swell into red giants. Using NASA’s TESS telescope to study nearly half a million stars, scientists ...

Black Hole Blast Outshines 10 Trillion Suns

Nov. 7, 2025 A colossal black hole 10 billion light-years away has been caught devouring one of the universe’s biggest stars, unleashing a flare 30 times brighter than any seen before. The flare, detected by ...

Astronomers Capture a Violent Super-Eruption from a Young Sun

Nov. 3, 2025 Astronomers observed a massive, multi-temperature plasma eruption from a young Sun-like star, revealing how early solar explosions could shape planets. These fierce events may have influenced the ...

Scientists Finally Spot Hidden Waves Powering the Sun’s Corona

Oct. 27, 2025 Researchers have directly observed torsional Alfvén waves twisting through the Sun’s corona — magnetic waves first predicted over 80 years ago. Captured using the Daniel K. Inouye Solar ...

MIT Finds Traces of a Lost World Deep Within Planet Earth

Oct. 17, 2025 Researchers have discovered chemical fingerprints of Earth's earliest incarnation, preserved in ancient mantle rocks. A unique imbalance in potassium isotopes points to remnants of “proto ...

These Giant Planets Shouldn’t Exist. But They Do

Oct. 15, 2025 Astronomers are investigating a strange class of exoplanets known as eccentric warm Jupiters — massive gas giants that orbit their stars in unexpected, elongated paths. Unlike their close-orbiting ...

JWST Spots a Hidden Red Supergiant Just Before It Exploded

Oct. 9, 2025 The James Webb Space Telescope has uncovered a massive red supergiant star just before it exploded, finally solving a cosmic mystery. Hidden beneath layers of dust, the doomed star revealed itself ...

Rogue Planet Spotted Devouring 6 Billion Tons Every Second

Oct. 3, 2025 Astronomers have uncovered a runaway feeding frenzy in a rogue planet drifting freely through space, devouring six billion tonnes of gas and dust every second. Located 620 light-years away in the ...

JWST May Have Found the Universe’s First Stars Powered by Dark Matter

Oct. 14, 2025 New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope hint that the universe’s first stars might not have been ordinary fusion-powered suns, but enormous “supermassive dark stars” powered by ...

James Webb Spots a Cosmic Moon Factory 625 Light-Years Away

Oct. 29, 2025 NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured the first detailed look at a carbon-rich disk surrounding the exoplanet CT Cha b, located about 625 light-years from Earth. The observations reveal a ...

Astronomers Stunned as Fiery Auroras Blaze on a Planet Without a Star

Sep. 29, 2025 The James Webb Telescope has revealed fierce auroras, storms, and unchanging sand-like clouds on the rogue planet SIMP-0136. These insights are pushing the boundaries of our understanding of alien ...

Neutrinos May Be the Hidden Force Behind Gold and Platinum

Sep. 21, 2025 When two neutron stars collide, they unleash some of the most powerful forces in the universe, creating ripples in spacetime, showers of radiation, and even the building blocks of gold and platinum. ...

Alien Water Worlds Were Just a Mirage

Sep. 19, 2025 A new study challenges the dream of water-rich “Hycean” planets like K2-18b, suggesting that most sub-Neptunes lose their water deep into their interiors during formation. Instead of vast oceans, ...

White Dwarf Caught Devouring a Frozen Pluto-Like World

Sep. 17, 2025 Astronomers have detected the chemical fingerprint of a frozen, water-rich planetary fragment being devoured by a white dwarf star, offering the clearest evidence yet that icy, life-delivering ...

NASA's Webb Space Telescope Just Found Strange Red Dots That Shouldn’t Exist

Sep. 14, 2025 Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have uncovered mysterious “little red dots” that may not be galaxies at all, but a whole new type of object: black hole stars. These fiery ...

Black Holes Just Proved Stephen Hawking Right With the Clearest Signal Yet

Sep. 12, 2025 Gravitational-wave astronomy has exploded since 2015, capturing hundreds of black hole and neutron star collisions. With ever-clearer signals, researchers are testing Einstein’s relativity and ...

NASA’s Celestial “Accident” Unlocks Secrets of Jupiter and Saturn

Sep. 10, 2025 Astronomers studying an oddball brown dwarf called “The Accident” have finally spotted silane, a long-predicted silicon molecule missing from Jupiter and Saturn’s skies. Its ancient, ...

Webb Spots First Hints of Atmosphere on a Potentially Habitable World

Oct. 1, 2025 Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope are unraveling the mysteries of TRAPPIST-1e, an Earth-sized exoplanet 40 light years away that could harbor liquid water. Early data suggests hints of ...

Thousands of Sparkling Newborn Stars Ignite in Webb’s Lobster Nebula View

Oct. 5, 2025 NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has unveiled a breathtaking cosmic landscape that looks more like a scene from fantasy than reality. What appears to be a glowing mountain peak shrouded in mist is ...

Scientists Crack a 50-Year Solar Mystery With a Scorching Discovery

Sep. 17, 2025 Scientists from the University of St Andrews have discovered that ions in solar flares can reach scorching temperatures more than 60 million degrees—6.5 times hotter than previously believed. This ...