This System Reveals How Super-Earths Are Born

By Andy Tomaswick - January 10, 2026 12:30 PM UTC | Exoplanets
One of the best things about being able to see thousands of exoplanetary systems is that we’re able to track them in different stages of development. Scientists still have so many questions about how planets form, and comparing notes between systems of different ages is one way to answer them. A new paper recently published in Nature by John Livingston of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and his co-authors details one particularly interesting system, known as V1298, which is only around 30 million years old, and hosts an array of four “cotton candy” planets, which represent some of the earliest stages of planet formation yet seen.
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To Keep Water Liquid, the Red Planet Needed to Freeze

By Andy Tomaswick - January 08, 2026 08:55 PM UTC | Astrobiology
Mars has a curious past. Rovers have shown unequivocal evidence that liquid water existed on its surface, for probably at least 100 years. But climate models haven’t come up with how exactly that happened with what we currently understand about what the Martian climate was like back then. A new paper, published in the journal AGU Advances by Eleanor Moreland, a graduate student at Rice University, and her co-authors, has a potential explanation for what might have happened - liquid lakes on the Red Planet would have hid under small, seasonal ice sheets similar to the way they do in Antarctica on Earth.
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Europa May Be Lifeless and Unihabitable After All

By Evan Gough - January 08, 2026 12:06 AM UTC | Milky Way
New research shows that Jupiter's moon Europa, one of the prime targets in the search for life, may not have the conditions required after all. The research shows that the moon lacks the type of active seafloor faulting needed to create habitability. Deep sea vents created by the faulting introduce nutrients into the water that organisms use to harness energy, and without those nutrients, the moon's subsurface ocean is likely dead.
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Stellar Habitability In Our Neighbourhood

By Evan Gough - January 07, 2026 08:02 PM UTC | Stars
A new survey of K-type stars in the Sun's neighbourhood reveals important information about their ability to sustain their habitable zones. These stars are less massive, cooler, and dimmer than the Sun, but stay on the main sequence for many tens of billions of years. Their long lives can create the stable conditions necessary for life to develop on exoplanets.
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How the Evidence for Alien Life on K2-18 b Evaporated

By Andy Tomaswick - January 07, 2026 04:43 PM UTC | Exoplanets
It feels like every time we publish an article about an exciting discovery of a potential biosignature on a new exoplanet, we have to publish a follow-up one a few months later debunking the original claims. That is exactly how science is supposed to work, and part of our job as science journalists is to report on the debunking as well as the original story, even if it might not be as exciting. In this particular case, it seems the discovery of dimethyl sulfide in the atmosphere of exoplanet K2-18 b was a false alarm, according to a new paper available in pre-print form on arXiv by Luis Welbanks of Arizona State University and his co-authors.
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By Jove: Jupiter Reaches Opposition for 2026

By David Dickinson - January 07, 2026 02:34 PM UTC | Observing
It was a question I heard lots this past weekend. “What’s that bright star near the Full Moon?” That ‘star’ was actually a planet, as Jupiter heads towards opposition rising ‘opposite’ to the setting Sun this coming weekend. This places the King of the Planets high in the northern sky, in the same general spot the Full Moon occupies in January.
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Astronomers Discover a Bright Supernova Using Gravitational Lensing for the First Time

By Matthew Williams - January 06, 2026 10:54 PM UTC | Observing
An international team of astronomers using a combination of ground-based telescopes, including the W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaiʻi Island, has discovered the first-ever spatially resolved, gravitationally lensed superluminous supernova. The object, dubbed SN 2025wny, offers a rare look at a stellar cataclysm from the early Universe and provides a striking confirmation of Einstein’s theory of general relativity.
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The Galaxy That Never Was

By Evan Gough - January 06, 2026 07:17 PM UTC | Extragalactic
A team using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered a new type of astronomical object —a starless, gas-rich, dark-matter cloud that is considered a “relic” or remnant of early galaxy formation. Nicknamed “Cloud-9,” this is the first confirmed detection of such an object in the Universe. The finding furthers the understanding of galaxy formation, the early Universe, and the nature of dark matter itself.
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