James S. Jenkins

On the dayside of WASP-121b, where rocks vaporize from the heat, Webb’s telescope has spotted clouds of calcium titanate — the same white pigment used in paint. The discovery unveils the alchemy of ultra-hot worlds and how the host star gradually destroys its planet.

LTT-9779 b is a planet from the 'hot Neptune desert', a region where worlds usually perish. But it survived thanks to a carbon cocoon: an atmosphere of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide turned out to be so thick that it doesn't evaporate even at 2000°C. On top of that, this exoplanet reflects 80% o

310 light-years from Earth, astronomers have found a remarkable system: a 15 million-year-old star surrounded by two transiting gas giants with record-long orbits of 225 and 314 days. Observations with TESS, CHEOPS, and ground-based telescopes measured their radii and set upper limits on their masse