Loïc Albert

Planet WASP-121b orbits so near its star that the fierce heat boils its atmosphere away, streaming like a comet's tails. With the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers continuously watched this process for the first time.

Cosmic black holes at the centers of galaxies are like giant banyan trees: their aerial root‑filaments stretch for kiloparsecs to harvest nourishing matter. For decades astronomers have debated: how does cooling gas from cluster atmospheres fall into the sphere of influence of a supermassive hole?