https://phys.org/space-news/planetary-sciences/ en-us Planetary science and exoplanets exploration news stories and features from Phys.org An international collaboration has discovered two of the lowest-density giant planets ever detected: rare "super-puff" planets with densities lower than candy floss. The study—led by the University of Oxford, in collaboration with Université Côte d'Azur/Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur and the University of Birmingham—has been published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-super-puff-planets-lighter-candy.html Astronomy Wed, 24 Jun 2026 21:10:02 EDT news701508781 In September 2025, NASA announced that its Perseverance rover had discovered a potential biosignature, which is a substance or structure that might have a biological origin. A new paper, published in Science Advances, unambiguously confirms the detection of organic carbon, the building blocks of life, in the same two rocks from the Bright Angel formation, and describes in more detail exactly what we can say about that organic matter. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-carbon-bright-angel-formation-mars.html Astrobiology Wed, 24 Jun 2026 18:10:04 EDT news701538061 A University of Iowa-led physics team has detailed the extreme expansion of a magnetic cloud that originated from a huge, gaseous explosion on the sun. In a new study, the researchers describe the inflated magnetic cloud as recorded by spacecraft in separate, fortuitous locations as the cloud approached Earth. During that interval—spanning some 13 million miles (21 million kilometers)—the cloud expanded by a fifth of its original size during its approach to Earth, as plasma inside the super-expanded bubble heated up. The researchers termed the striking increase in size a "super expansion." https://phys.org/news/2026-06-solar-blast-magnetic-cloud-grew.html Astronomy Wed, 24 Jun 2026 17:50:02 EDT news701537521 A large asteroid that will zoom harmlessly past Earth on Saturday will be visible to stargazers using a small telescope or large binoculars, the European Space Agency announced Wednesday. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-asteroid-earth-saturday-visible-stargazers.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 24 Jun 2026 11:10:47 EDT news701518210 Vegetarians need not worry yet—plants will be on Earth for a long time to come. But not forever. The sun will ultimately determine the long-term existence of life on Earth. Its total energy output, called luminosity, has been increasing over epochs and eons by about 10% every billion years—determining much of Earth's surface temperature. This will continue for billions of years in the future. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-survive-earth-billion-years.html Astrobiology Tue, 23 Jun 2026 10:00:05 EDT news701425675 Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) scientists are using a solar wind forecasting method combined with analytic and numerical heliosphere models to find out where the first plasma boundary of the outer heliosphere lies as NASA's New Horizons spacecraft hurtles toward this mysterious region of space. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-solar-heliosphere-boundaries.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 22 Jun 2026 18:10:01 EDT news701364782 Researchers are constantly sifting through new spectral data gathered by powerful telescopes, like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Most of the time, when they identify spectral features—specific absorption or emission lines from different types of light gathered from a planet, moon or star—these features are known to be caused by certain atoms or molecules. For example, the emission line at 426.7 nanometers is known to come from singly ionized carbon, representing a specific atomic transition between energy states of a carbon ion. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-titan-pluto-mysterious-spectral-feature.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 22 Jun 2026 12:00:04 EDT news701346373 An interstellar comet that blazed past the sun last year could be nearly three times older than our solar system and is unlike anything ever seen before in our cosmic backyard, astronomers said Monday. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-interstellar-visitor-3iatlas-billions-years.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 22 Jun 2026 11:37:07 EDT news701346955 Using the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) and the Manchester Echelle Spectrograph (MES), astronomers from Turkey and Mexico have investigated a planetary nebula discovered two centuries ago, known as NGC 6563. Results of the observations, published June 15 in a special issue of Galaxies journal, yield important insights into the morphology and kinematics of this nebula. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-planetary-nebula-ear-lobes-rewrite.html Astronomy Sun, 21 Jun 2026 13:20:01 EDT news701085925 Need some good news on a Friday after a long week? The Earth may not be engulfed by the expanding fireball of the dying sun, which has long been assumed to be our home planet's ultimate fate, according to scientists. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-sun-engulf-earth-scientists.html Planetary Sciences Fri, 19 Jun 2026 15:40:02 EDT news701085030 Sending a spacecraft to the underexplored planet Uranus is at the top of many planetary scientists' wish lists. But which spacecraft-mounted instruments would be most useful for answering questions about the mysterious ice giant? https://phys.org/news/2026-06-energetic-neutral-atoms-uranus-odd.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 18 Jun 2026 18:20:02 EDT news701014562 Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) scientists studying the inner main-belt asteroid Donaldjohanson have found that its rotation wobbles. Rather than rolling through space in a steady pattern, Donaldjohanson turns on two axes, rotating end over end once every 10.5 Earth days while wobbling around its horizontal axis every 26.5 days. The findings are published in the journal Science. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-asteroid-donaldjohanson-rotates-lucy-flyby.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 18 Jun 2026 17:20:02 EDT news701013601 Finding life beyond our solar system is a major goal of modern astronomy. NASA's planned Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) aims to take direct images of Earth-sized planets around stars other than our sun. This task, however, is extraordinarily difficult, given that these planets are roughly 10 billion times fainter than their host stars. To detect them, scientists must find ways to suppress nearly all of the nearby starlight, which would otherwise overwhelm the faint planetary signal. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-telescope-mirror-stability-exoplanet.html Astronomy Thu, 18 Jun 2026 16:20:01 EDT news701011867 Billions of years ago, environmental conditions on Mars were significantly more hospitable than they are today. Our neighboring planet was likely warm, humid and surrounded by a dense atmosphere. Whether simple microorganisms could have evolved at that time remains an open question. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-mars-life-boost-rover-distinguishes.html Astrobiology Thu, 18 Jun 2026 14:20:05 EDT news701007901 High above our heads, a silent battle is unfolding within Earth's magnetic shield. For decades, scientists have tracked "killer electrons"—ultrafast particles capable of piercing satellite armor and endangering astronauts as they zip through the Van Allen radiation belts. While we knew these dangerous particles eventually leak out of the belts and into the atmosphere, the primary mechanism "cleaning" the highest-energy electrons has remained a persistent mystery of space weather. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-hidden-electric-space-quietly-earth.html Astronomy Thu, 18 Jun 2026 11:20:07 EDT news700999652 Northwestern University-led astronomers have discovered salty skies surrounding the universe's famous "Pink Planet." For more than a decade, the ancient, rosy-hazed world kept astronomers guessing. One of the coldest known planetary-mass companions ever directly imaged, the elusive object is too faint for astronomers to dissect its light from Earth. But new observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reveal an atmosphere filled with exotic chemistry—and salty clouds unlike anything seen before. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-famous-pink-planet-harbors-salty.html Astronomy Thu, 18 Jun 2026 10:00:09 EDT news700896902 The solar atmosphere is a turbulent and magnetized environment, with the release of magnetic energy readily manifesting as emission across the electromagnetic spectrum. Solar radio emission dominates the radio sky, with the brightest solar radio bursts generated via the plasma emission process. The emission has a complex frequency-time structure with many features that are yet to be understood. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-lofar-reveals-spike-radio-pairs.html Astronomy Wed, 17 Jun 2026 14:40:01 EDT news700915332 The European Space Agency's Mars Express has captured part of Mars's Mamers Valles, a fascinating valley system speckled with brief, tornado-like whirlwinds known as dust devils. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-dozens-devils-caught-swirling-mars.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 17 Jun 2026 14:20:02 EDT news700914890 An international team of scientists has identified a completely new type of rock from the red planet and, for the first time, discovered the mineral garnet in a Martian sample. The breakthrough offers a rare glimpse into Mars' ancient past and could help researchers piece together the planet's 4.5-billion-year geological history. The discovery was made by an international research team including James Darling, professor of Earth and planetary science, from the University of Portsmouth's School of the Environment and Life Sciences. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-mineral-garnet-mars-meteorite-reveal.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 17 Jun 2026 10:00:04 EDT news700907281 One well-done gas giant, coming right up! That's the latest from researchers analyzing NASA's James Webb Space Telescope observations of HD 80606 b, an exoplanet four times the mass of Jupiter with an extremely elliptical orbit that sweeps close by its sun-like star. The research team is presenting its study and preliminary findings Tuesday at the 248th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS248) in Pasadena, California. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-nasa-webb-exoplanet-roasted.html Astronomy Wed, 17 Jun 2026 08:40:10 EDT news700903022 A team of scientists has used NASA's Goldstone Solar System Radar and the U.S. National Science Foundation Green Bank Telescope (NSF GBT) to carry out the most extensive radar study to date of Europa, the ocean world orbiting Jupiter. By repeatedly "pinging" Europa with 3.5-centimeter (1.4-inch) radio waves between 2011 and 2024, the team measured how the moon reflects radar signals and confirmed that its icy surface scatters radio energy in an unusually strong and complex way not seen on rocky worlds. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-radar-echoes-europa-reveal-secrets.html Astronomy Wed, 17 Jun 2026 08:20:06 EDT news700902423 New research led by a scientist at IPAC—a science and data center for astrophysics and planetary science at Caltech—studying the hot Jupiter CoRoT-2 b has settled on one of the three leading hypotheses explaining why its atmosphere has a hot spot in the opposite direction from that seen on all other exoplanets of this type. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-oddball-exoplanet-hot-jupiter.html Astronomy Wed, 17 Jun 2026 07:20:09 EDT news700897261 Could Earth have seeded Jupiter's moon Europa with bacterial life, where it could have taken hold in Europa's ocean and perhaps evolved into something more? That's the hypothesis of a new paper in the International Journal of Astrobiology by Zaza Osmanov of the Free University of Tbilisi in Georgia. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-earth-life-jupiter-moon-europa.html Astrobiology Tue, 16 Jun 2026 09:20:07 EDT news700742290 Italian astronomers have used the Very Large Telescope (VLT) to perform polarimetric observations of the star WRAY 15-1880 and its young circumstellar disk. Results of the new observations, presented June 10 on the arXiv preprint server, suggest that this disk may host a primitive planetary system. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-young-disk-wray-primitive-planetary.html Astronomy Tue, 16 Jun 2026 08:20:01 EDT news700802492 Caltech researchers have identified a novel chemical reaction that could explain the formation of the building blocks of DNA and RNA, the molecules that encode all of life's functions. The work is an important step toward understanding how life may have emerged on Earth and potentially elsewhere in the universe, showing the straightforward and efficient pathways through which simple molecules can give rise to complex biological precursors. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-benzene-reaction-dna-rna-blocks.html Astrobiology Mon, 15 Jun 2026 16:20:01 EDT news700757522 Debris is still raining down on Earth more than 100 million years after the giant cosmic explosion that created it. A study published this week in Nature Astronomy by an international team reached this conclusion using measurements of rare isotopes within a slow-growing ferromanganese crust recovered from the depths of the Pacific Ocean. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-deep-sea-crust-uncovers-steady.html Astrobiology Mon, 15 Jun 2026 15:40:01 EDT news700754041 A team of astronomers, led by Brooke Kotten of the University of Michigan, has shown that TOI-5882—a sunlike star located some 1,300 light-years away—has likely eaten one of its planets. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-lithium-spike-reveals-sun-star.html Astronomy Mon, 15 Jun 2026 14:40:02 EDT news700746421 Physicists led by the University of Iowa have documented in the finest detail to date how energy from the sun interacts with Earth's magnetic field, which could yield greater insight into solar effects on Earth that drive space weather. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-tracers-spacecraft-solar-energy-route.html Planetary Sciences Sat, 13 Jun 2026 16:00:01 EDT news700412869 Using the Subaru Telescope, astronomers have conducted follow-up observations of a recently discovered exoplanet known as TOI-1883 b. Results of the new observations, published June 5 on the arXiv preprint server, indicate that TOI-1883 b is a low-density super-Neptune. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-puffy-super-neptune-emerges-years.html Planetary Sciences Fri, 12 Jun 2026 08:00:04 EDT news700453179 Moon missions come in all shapes and sizes, from car-sized rovers packed with scientific equipment to towering rocket payloads—and now, a small, shape-shifting machine that is about the size of the average palm. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-shifting-tiny-rover-japanese-toys.html Space Exploration Thu, 11 Jun 2026 12:00:08 EDT news700393361