This discovery marks a major milestone in the search for life on worlds beyond our solar system. A faint stream of helium escaping from a distant rocky world has revealed something astronomers had never clearly detected before: an atmosphere around an Earth-like planet in another star’s habitable zone. The result is the strongest evidence so [...]
The small exoplanets of our Sun’s second-nearest neighbor, Barnard’s Star, are inhospitable wastelands, British astronomers say.
Located six light-years from Earth, Barnard’s Star is separated from our closest neighbor, Alpha Centauri, by about 66° in our sky. Now, University of Cambridge researchers have revealed their findings on this exosolar system in a recent paper published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
After careful analysis, the astronomers announced that the exoplanets are unlike any in our solar system, presenting a brutal and barren environment.
Scientists only discovered these four small planets orbiting Barnard’s Star in 2025. Unlike anything in our solar system, these orbital bodies fit into a size range larger than Mars, but smaller than Earth or Venus.
Like a peeled onion, these smaller planets are rich in a mineral only found deep below the Earth’s surface. Chemical analysis revealed large amounts of the mineral periclase on the surface of these planets, something typically only found hundreds of kilometers deep on our planet.
“Barnard’s Star has an enormous amount of the element magnesium compared to other stars, so its planets are likely to be rich in magnesium too,” said lead author Xander Byrne from Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy. “On Earth, that magnesium goes into making minerals called olivines, which are really important for storing water within the planet.”
Unfortunately for those looking for extraterrestrial life, magnesium serves a different purpose on these exoplanets. Instead of water-storing olivine, it produces the abundant periclase, which is a poor store of water.
Even worse, these inhospitable exoplanets likely no longer have an atmosphere. According to the University of Cambridge team, these ten-billion-year-old planets probably only managed to hold an atmosphere for two billion years at most.
“These planets were always going to be hostile, because they’re really close to their star,” said Byrne. “Even the outermost planet orbits ten times closer than Mercury orbits the Sun. When you’re that close to your star, and have such little gravity, your atmosphere just gets blown off.”
In addition to the lack of atmosphere, the planets’ proximity to Barnard’s Star leaves them tidally locked, like our Moon, with one side always facing toward the star.
However, there is one positive element to these small planets. Typically, such close-orbiting systems are highly unstable, with the planets shooting out from the system, falling into their host star, or catastrophically colliding. Yet in this case, the system is as ordered as a piece of music.
The three inner planets of the exosolar system have years in a 9:12:16 ratio, producing two of what is known as a “perfect fourth” in music. This musical harmony is known as an orbital resonance, with the same type of effect stabilizing Jupiter’s moons in their orbits around that planet.
While our ability to view Barnard’s Star from Earth may be limited, the European Space Agency’s upcoming Plato mission may allow astronomers to discover ever smaller worlds orbiting in the nearby exosolar system.
“Larger planets are much easier to detect than small ones, so we know about very few sub-Earth planets like the ones in this system,” said Byrne. “But the sensitivity of these new missions will help to reduce this bias, allowing us to discover more and more planets that are small and rocky, like Earth.”
The true significance of the research may lie in the value of a null result. While these planets are bleakly hostile to life, observing this exosolar system’s composition can aid future astronomers in narrowing down the search for extraterrestrial life.
The paper, “The Barnard’s Star Planetary System: Stability, Composition, and Evolution of Four Sub-Earth Exoplanets,” appeared in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society on June 24, 2026.
Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.
New 3D computer simulations from ETH Zurich show that young rift flanks on Venus stay tall and steep, while older ones flatten out over time.
The post Giant Rift Valleys Hint Venus is Still Tectonically Active appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
Scientists discovered a rare planet larger than Jupiter orbiting a distant star once every 180 days. A planet nearly five times as massive as Jupiter circles a distant star once every 180 days. Known as NGTS-38 b, it is an exoplanet, meaning a world that orbits a star outside our solar system. NGTS-38 b is [...]Webb found a hidden giant planet by detecting its atmospheric chemistry through a bright debris disk. For years, a third giant planet remained concealed within the bright dust surrounding Beta Pictoris, one of the most closely observed planetary systems in the Milky Way. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has now exposed the hidden world by [...]Planetary researchers have found the first evidence that bursts of energetic particles from the Sun could warm the lower atmosphere of Mars during massive dust storms, hinting at an unexpected link between space weather and Martian climate.
The post Space Weather May Warp Martian Weather during Dust Storms, Planetary Scientists Suggest appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
New NASA imagery has revealed a growing Martian “crescent” and surface details on the Red Planet as the agency’s Psyche spacecraft recently completed a flyby of Earth’s nearby planetary neighbor.
Launched on October 13, 2023, Psyche is currently on its way toward a rendezvous with a metal-rich asteroid after which the space probe was named. Now, in a series of composite images captured as the spacecraft flew past Mars during a gravity assist in early May, the growing crescent shape of the Red Planet is shown in successive views of Earth’s nearby planetary neighbor.
“After these views were captured by the spacecraft’s multispectral imager instrument, Mars began to overfill the field of view as Psyche made close approach with the planet and captured a series of high-resolution images of the surface,” read a NASA statement accompanying the imagery.
In several of the images, Mars appears as a thin sliver due to the high phase angle of approach as Psyche made its way toward the planet. In the days that followed, the crescent is shown as it appears to “grow” as more sunlight illuminates its surface.
The recent crescent features weren’t all that Psyche captured during its recent near approach to Mars. In additional images released by the American space agency, the Martian surface appeared in colorful views obtained by the spacecraft’s multispectral imager instrument.
The resulting “mosaic” was created from four separate images acquired near the end of Psyche’s recent visit, shown in enhanced color that highlights several details visible on the Martian surface.
Traveling along a southwesterly path with relation to the Martian poles, the mosaic imagery appears slightly blurry, as it represents close to six minutes of travel above the planet. According to NASA, pixel scale resolution in the imagery “varies from 381 meters per pixel on the right to 440 meters per pixel on the left.”
Color enhancements to the imagery, collected with the imager’s green, blue, and near-infrared filters, reveal additional details about the various features of the volcanic region of Mars that Psyche flew over on May 15, 2026, known as the Iapygia region.
This area comprises part of the Martian southern highlands, and in the recent imagery, Fournier crater—the largest shown in the new imagery—can be seen, alongside hills, cliffs, and other features, including the irregular Oenotria Scopuli cliff system, forming one side of the boundary of a massive ancient impact feature on the Red Planet.
Additional details about the new imagery, as well as information about Psyche’s mission, can be found on NASA’s official mission page.
Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.
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