Richard P. Schwarz

Two new planets are circling dim red stars. One is nearly the size of Earth, the other is three and a half times larger. Both lie in what astronomers call the warm zone: a region where starlight doesn't scorch the surface but also doesn't leave it in perpetual cold. The host stars are red dwarfs, the most common stars in the galaxy.

A family moves into a cramped apartment in the city center. If the move was calm, relatives might have moved in with them. But if the family was evicted from their old home by a storm, they'll end up alone in the new place.

NASA's TESS space telescope monitors thousands of stars, catching the moment when a planet crosses its star's disk — the star's light dims slightly. That's how astronomers spotted two planets orbiting stars similar to our Sun. One, TOI-883 b, completes an orbit in ten days; the other, TOI-899 b, takes nearly thirteen.

Steam over a boiling pot slightly tints the light of a flashlight: it blocks some colors and lets others through. That's roughly how we study the air of distant planets.

On a sunny street, there's a house with a big family: a giant father who always sits by the window and a small child running around the yard. That's the TOI-4468 system: a gas giant hot Jupiter hugs the star, while a bit farther out circles a sub-Neptune — a planet smaller than Neptune but larger than Earth.