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This artist???s impression shows an ultra-hot exoplanet, a planet beyond our Solar System, as it is about to transit in front of its host star. When the light from the star passes through the planet???s atmosphere, it is filtered by the chemical elements and molecules in the gaseous layer. With sensitive instruments, the signatures of those elements and molecules can be observed from Earth. Using the ESPRESSO instrument of ESO???s Very Large Telescope, astronomers have found the heaviest element yet in an exoplanet's atmosphere, barium, in the two ultra-hot Jupiters WASP-76 b and WASP-121 b.

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Two exoplanets have a strangely heavy element floating in their skies

Astronomers have found barium floating high in the atmospheres of two sweltering exoplanets, and they don’t know how such a heavy element ended up where it is

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Artist's impression of three planets orbiting an ultracool dwarf star

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Earth's algae and moss could survive under the light of another star

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The telescopes of the SPECULOOS Southern Observatory gaze out into the stunning night sky over the Atacama desert in Chile

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Two potentially habitable super-Earth planets have been discovered

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Artist’s impression of a BEASTie. The image shows a gas giant planet (like Jupiter) on a distant orbit around a blue, massive star. The planet is likely to have been captured or stolen from another star. The background stars are members of the same star-forming region and could be the star the BEASTie was born around.

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Weird, enormous planets may be stolen from stars in 'planetary heists'

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Exoplanet

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First exoplanet picture from James Webb Space Telescope revealed

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JWST found carbon dioxide in an exoplanet atmosphere – and a mystery

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JWST found carbon dioxide in an exoplanet atmosphere – and a mystery

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Illustration of the exoplanet LHS 3844 b

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JWST could soon tell us what exoplanets' surfaces are made of

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Rogue planet

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Rogue planets with weird atmospheres and no star could host life

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KRB4DP This is an artist's impression of the view from the vicinity of a hypothetical terrestrial planet and moon orbiting the red dwarf star AU Microscopii. The relatively newborn 12 million year-old star is surrounded by a very dusty disk of debris from the collision of comets, asteroids, and planetissimals swirling around the young star. Though no planets have been discovered around the star, the disk is strong circumstantial evidence for planets. Not only is it dusty, but also it is warped, possibly by the pull of one or more planets. In this view the glow of starlight reflecting off the disk cre

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Mysterious cold blobs may be hiding inside a distant star

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HRJM18 Exoplanet OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb

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One in every 50 planets may have been stolen from other stars

Planets can be snatched from one solar system by another in the early lives of stars born in dense clusters of dust and gas

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Pairs of giant planets may make their star systems ultra-habitable

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Aliens could say hello by arranging planets in prime number pattern

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Search starlight to help astronomers discover new exoplanets

Regulars

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Exocomets are probably born the same way as comets in our solar system

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