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  1. NASA's Webb Discovers Hidden Planet in Famous Star System

    July 15, 2026Release ID: 2026-126 Missions: Webb

    Planet found through its atmospheric fingerprint opens new way to uncover worlds hidden in starlight

    Artist's concept of the Beta Pictoris planetary system. One edge of a smooth, dusty disk that looks like cloud wisps extends across the upper third of the image at an angle from 9 o’clock to 2 o’clock. Just below that, in the left third of the image, the star glows white and is small. Just to the left of the star there is a tiny white dot, planet Beta Pictoris c. To the right of the star, about twice the distance between Beta Pictoris c and the star is another bright dot, representing planet Beta Pictoris b. A third planet, Beta Pictoris d is larger than the other two, and appears in the right third of the illustration. The planet has subtle orange cloud bands, and the side facing the star is illuminated. Below this planet, the other wispy edge of the dusty disk that circles the star crosses the bottom right corner of the illustration below Beta Pictoris d from 4 o’clock to 7 o’clock. The black background of space is speckled with distant stars. The words "Artist's Concept" appears at the lower left corner.

  2. NASA’s Webb Studies How Planet Survived Death of its Star

    July 01, 2026Release ID: 2026-121 Missions: Webb

    WD 1856 b likely migrated to its current location billions of years after its star became a white dwarf.

    An orange gas giant planet at left, taking up about one-third of the frame, facing a star, which appears at top right as a far smaller bright dot. The planet has subtle orange cloud bands. The star illuminates the right side of the planet like the crescent of a waxing moon. Both are on the black background of space. The words “artist’s concept” are in the bottom right corner.

  3. NASA's Webb Catches Exoplanet Getting Roasted

    June 16, 2026Release ID: 2026-122 Missions: Webb

    Webb follows the path laid by the Spitzer Space Telescope to drill down on details of one of the most extreme exoplanets yet discovered.

    Illustration of a planet and a star, labeled artist’s concept at the bottom left. The planet fills more than a quarter of the image to the upper right, with the bright star to its lower left. The planet is white hot on the star side, fading to yellow that mixes with swirls of bright red across its middle, and eventually fading to black on the side most distant from the star. Distant stars dot the background of space, which is black near the edges of the frame.

  4. NASA's Webb Redefines Dividing Line Between Planets, Stars

    April 14, 2026Release ID: 2026-116 Missions: Webb

    Composition and orbit of super-chonky 29 Cygni b point to accretion within a protoplanetary disk.

    A black square labeled “29 Cyg” at upper right. In the middle, a white star symbol is surrounded by a small blue trapezoid that widens from upper left to lower right of the star. The star is labeled with a capital A. The trapezoid indicates where the star’s light has been blocked by a coronagraph. To the star’s left beyond the blue trapezoid at 8 o’clock is a fuzzy white blob labeled with a lower-case b.

  5. NASA’s Webb Observes Exoplanet Whose Composition Defies Explanation

    December 16, 2025Release ID: 2025-134 Missions: Webb

    Bizarre, lemon-shaped world has an atmosphere unlike any ever seen before.

    Illustration labeled “artist’s concept” at right bottom corner. At left bottom corner, a partially illuminated, lemon-shaped exoplanet appears against a black background. This planet is most brightly illuminated at its elongated tip on its right side. On the left side, which is wider, the planet trails off into the darkness of the background. The planet is colored in varying, mottled shades of red, light pink, and fuchsia. Most of the pink occurs closest to the tip, while most of the fuchsia is at the top and bottom edges. At right top corner, a white beam emanates diagonally, oriented from 10 o’clock to 4 o’clock, from either side of a small, glowing, white star.

  6. NASA’s Webb Detects Thick Atmosphere Around Broiling Lava World 

    December 11, 2025Release ID: 2025-140 Missions: Webb

    Observations of the ultra-hot super-Earth exoplanet TOI-561 b show the strongest evidence yet for an atmosphere on a rocky planet outside our solar system.

    Illustration of a planet orbiting a star, with the words “Artist’s Concept” in the lower right corner.

  7. NASA's Webb Telescope Studies Moon-Forming Disk Around Massive Planet

    September 29, 2025Release ID: 2025-142 Missions: Webb

    The disk offers insight into how the moons of solar system gas giants like Jupiter might have formed.

    An illustration of a young planet with a surrounding disk of dust and gas potentially forming moons. The planet, which appears dark red, is shown at lower right, circled by a cloudy, clumpy reddish orange-colored disk. The host star appears at upper left, and glows yellow, with its own reddish disk of debris. The disk that surrounds the planet takes up about half the illustration. The black background of space is speckled with stars. At the bottom of the illustration, graphics of molecules are listed in the following order: diacetylene, hydrogen cyanide, propyne, acetylene, ethane, carbon dioxide, benzene. The words Artist’s Concept appear at upper right.

  8. NASA Webb Looks at Earth-Sized, Habitable-Zone Exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 e

    September 08, 2025Release ID: 2025-109 Missions: Webb

    While an original atmosphere is unlikely, scientists are narrowing possibilities for TRAPPIST-1 e’s secondary atmosphere, even as Webb observations of the exoplanet continue.

    Illustration of a star with multiple flares and four small orbiting planets. Star is at the center of the image, with a silhouetted planet to its lower right. A smaller planet is shown an inch to the left, also silhouetted. A third planet is directly to the left of the star, gray and white but without much detail, and farther out near the left edge of the image is the fourth planet, also gray with little detail.

  9. Webb Narrows Atmospheric Possibilities for Earth-sized Exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 d

    August 13, 2025Release ID: 2025-120 Missions: Webb

    Could planets orbiting red dwarf stars like TRAPPIST-1 be habitable? Webb scientists say the investigation is ongoing.

    A planet is silhouetted in front of a star. The star shows a large eruption on one side and more wisps of red coming from its southern hemisphere. Two more planets appear in the background.

  10. NASA's Webb Finds New Evidence for Planet Around Closest Solar Twin

    August 07, 2025Release ID: 2025-135 Missions: Webb

    Data shows planet could be a gas giant, orbiting 1 to 2 times the distance between Sun and Earth.

    Three panels, each showing a different view of the binary star system Alpha Centauri. The panel at the left is a Digitized Sky Survey image showing a single bright point source at the center of a black image with small stars scattered throughout. The very center of this bright source is outlined with a vertical box, tilted slightly to the left, with two diagonal lines leading to the second panel. The Hubble Space Telescope image shows two white stars with 4 diffraction spikes each against a black background. The top star is labeled Alpha Cen B and the bottom Alpha Cen A. Alpha Cen A is outlined with a white square with two diagonal lines leading to the third panel at the furthest right, which shows a James Webb Space Telescope image of the star. Within a large white circle there is a blurry red-toned field with an orange star icon and central black circle outlined in white marking the location of Alpha Cen A. A bright orange blob at 9 o’clock in relation to the star is labeled “S1” and circled.

  11. Likely Saturn-Mass Planet Imaged by NASA Webb Is Lightest Ever Seen

    June 25, 2025Release ID: 2025-126 Missions: Webb

    The newfound planet represents Webb’s first direct image discovery of a planet.

    An image of a nearby star and its vicinity. The star itself has been blocked out and its bright light has been removed, appearing black. A dashed circle with a star symbol at the center of the image marks the star’s location. A fuzzy blue disk surrounds the star. An orange spot, near the star and inside this disk around 2 o’clock, is identified as a planet orbiting the star. A fainter orange spot at the lower left edge marks a distant star.

  12. Frigid Exoplanet in Strange Orbit Imaged by NASA's Webb

    June 10, 2025Release ID: 2025-125 Missions: Webb

    First image ever taken of exoplanet in extremely mis-aligned system

    This image shows the exoplanet 14 Herculis c. The view is mostly black, with very faint red splotches in the central region of the image. At the center of the image, there is a black circle, and in the center of that, there is a star symbol representing a real star. This black circle blocks the light from the host star. To the lower right of the circle is a fuzzy bright orange circle, which is the exoplanet.

  13. NASA's Webb Lifts Veil on Common but Mysterious Type of Exoplanet

    May 05, 2025Release ID: 2025-113 Missions: Webb

    Scientists determine atmospheric makeup of small, hot, gassy sub-Neptune.

    Illustration showing a large fuzzy blue planet in the foreground, and an orange-yellow star in the background. The side of the planet facing the star is lit, and the side facing away is dark. The boundary between the lit and dark sides is fuzzy. The atmosphere is almost homogeneous in color and texture, with extremely subtle variations and no sign of a surface. The star is slightly more orange than the Sun. The black background of space is scattered with white points of light.

  14. NASA Webb's Autopsy of Planet Swallowed by Star Yields Surprise

    April 10, 2025Release ID: 2025-117 Missions: Webb

    Lingering brightness provides evidence for how planet met its demise.

    An illustration of a star after it has swallowed its own planet. The star look like an orange globe with flares coming out of various sides. A dark orange horizontal ring of material circles the host star. There is a very transparent cloud of blue dust spread out from the star.

  15. NASA's Webb Images Young, Giant Exoplanets, Detects Carbon Dioxide

    March 17, 2025Release ID: 2025-114 Missions: Webb

    Findings suggest giant exoplanets in HR 8799 system likely formed like Jupiter and Saturn.

    This image shows the planetary system HR 8799. The background is black. At the center there is a symbol representing a star labeled HR 8799. The star’s light is blocked. There are four exoplanets, which look like fuzzy dots, pictured surrounding the star. Furthest from the star is a fuzzy, faint blue dot, labeled b, at the 10 o’clock position. At the 1 o’clock position, second furthest from the star is a blueish-white fuzzy dot labeled c. Just below that is an orange dot labeled e. At the 4 o’clock position, still near the star, is another fuzzy white dot labeled d.

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