The Strangest Alien Worlds Are beyond Astronomers’ Wildest Dreams
Alien worlds that glow like lightbulbs or harbor molten-rock rain are revealing planets’ profound cosmic diversity—and pointing the way toward finding those that truly resemble our own familiar Earth
This Hellish Alien World’s Skies May Create an Eerie Rainbow ‘Glory’ Effect
The atmosphere of exoplanet WASP-76b may rain iron and form a strange, rainbow-like phenomenon called a “glory” never yet seen outside the solar system
‘Interstellar’ Meteor Signal May Have Been a Truck—So What Was Collected from the Ocean Floor?
New analyses cast doubt on claims that a meteor witnessed over the South Pacific in 2014 came from another star system and raise questions about a high-profile expedition to recover the fireball’s fragments from the seafloor
Astronomers Are Snapping Baby Pictures of Planets by the Dozen
Snapshots of a plethora of planet-forming disks offer more than just eye candy—they also reveal some fundamental aspects of how worlds are born
JWST Will Finally Hunt for Alien Moons—And Much More
The next year of science for the James Webb Space Telescope has been selected. It includes remote galaxy observations and, at last, a hunt for exomoons
JWST Is Tracking Down the Cosmic Origins of Earth’s Water
New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope are exposing the pathways that water takes to reach terrestrial planets
When We Find Earth 2.0, What’s Next?
We’re looking for another Earth. But how likely is it that we’ll find a duplicate of home?
Information Theory Can Help Us Search for Life on Alien Worlds
Information theory can help us decode signs of biological activity hiding in the atmospheres of distant exoplanets
Astronomers Spy First Star-Forming Disk beyond the Milky Way
No one has ever seen a newborn star feeding on its natal disk anywhere outside our galaxy—that is, until now
In the Search for Life beyond Earth, NASA Dreams Big for a Future Space Telescope
Astronomers are moving ahead in planning NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory, a telescope designed to answer the ultimate question: Are we alone in the universe?
Six-Planet System in Perfect Harmony Shocks Scientists
Six “sub-Neptune” worlds locked in a delicate dance around a nearby star offer fresh insights for the orbital evolution of planetary systems
Astronomy Is Facing an End of the Era of Monster Telescopes
Money, engineering and sheer geometry may mark an end of the line for building ever larger astronomical telescopes