James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations have revealed the colorful secret of the Pink Planet, the coldest object of its type ever directly observed.

A team of astronomers led by Northwestern University has revealed their findings in a recent paper published in The Astronomical Journal, finally describing the rose-colored haze covering the planetary-mass companion GJ504b, thanks to JWST data.

For over a decade, researchers have speculated that atmospheric salt clouds may create the pink planet’s strange hue, but this is the first concrete evidence for the hypothesis.

The Pink Planet

Since its discovery in 2013, GJ504b, commonly known as “The Pink Planet,” has been a bit of an astronomical mystery. Even the object’s description is imprecise: a “planetary-mass companion,” a nebulous category teetering between the size of a large planet and a brown dwarf, at roughly 25 times Jupiter’s mass. Residing 57 light-years from Earth, the object’s host star is similar to our Sun.

Faint due to extremely cold temperatures, astronomers cannot obtain clear enough observations with ground-based telescopes to perform spectroscopic analysis. However, from its vantage point beyond our atmosphere, the JWST’s advanced instruments have finally provided the necessary data to make sense of the object’s strange pink atmosphere.

The exoplanets most clearly observed are much hotter than our world, with temperatures between 1,000 and 2,000°F, creating a brilliance which can be seen across the gulf of space and through Earth’s atmosphere.

This giant planet is a mere 550°F, still hot by Earth standards, but far cooler than is normal for its type. According to the new study, GJ504b is an ancient world, some 2.5 to 4billion years old, with a slow cooling over time accounting for its decreased temperature.

Challenging JWST Observation

In addition to providing the first evidence for The Pink Planet’s elusive salt clouds, the team’s research has broader implications for studying cold objects, laying the groundwork for future JWST observations of such faint glows, too dim for ground-based telescopes.

“The Pink Planet is the coldest companion ever discovered using ground-based instruments,” according to Aneesh Baburaj, the study’s lead author. “Many teams all around the world performed follow-up observations to study its light, but it was too faint for ground-based instruments. That made it a perfect target for JWST. When we finally obtained its spectrum, it immediately looked interesting. But once we started digging deeper into the data, we realized it was not like anything we have analyzed before.”

To accurately analyze the light, Baburaj’s team used an advanced data-processing technique to remove considerable glare from the Pink Planet’s host star, improving the quality of the JWST data. Breaking light into separate colors through spectroscopic analysis allows scientists to determine the elemental composition of exoplanet atmospheres using JWST data.

“In the past, other astronomers observed the companion for an entire night with some of the biggest telescopes in the world to obtain a spectrum,” Baburaj said. “And they could not see the object. With JWST, our entire observation took around two hours, and we were successful.”

Analyzing the JWST Data

The team discovered water vapor, methane, carbon dioxide, ammonia, and other molecules in the object’s atmosphere, but these results conflicted with existing atmospheric models, which only made sense if the object had an extremely unlikely combination of physical features. However, once the team added clouds to the model, the effect of their salty formations on the light made the JWST data much easier to explain.

“We ran simulations with clouds, and the results aligned with what we know about cold planets,” Baburaj said. “We tried three different types of clouds, and salt clouds fit best. When we accounted for salt clouds, it subdued the signature of molecules hidden deeper in the companion’s atmosphere. Then, the results became physically possible.”

In addition to the salty clues, the researchers discovered an abundance of heavy metals. These may have something to do with The Pink Planet’s origins, as it may have originally formed as a star instead of a planet, but astronomers remain uncertain. In any case, the work process developed here will be essential to future JWST investigation of cold objects.

“This is the first time we’ve found that salt clouds are critical to explaining the spectrum of an object,” Baburaj concluded. “It’s a good reminder to account for clouds in our models.”

The paper, “JWST-TST High Contrast: First Direct Spectroscopy of GJ504b Reveals Clouds and Possible Metal Enrichment,” appeared in The Astronomical Journal on June 18, 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.

An extreme exoplanet gives astronomers a rare look at weather changing in real time.

For the first time, astronomers have distinguished between the morning and evening atmospheres of a single planet, revealing two remarkably different environments at its edges. WASP-121 b is a gas giant that orbits extremely close to its star, resulting in one hemisphere exposed to temperatures approaching 2,500 degrees Celsius while the opposite side remains in constant darkness.

A research team from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy used the James Webb Space Telescope to provide observational evidence for a phenomenon that models had previously predicted. The boundary regions between day and night on tidally locked planets can exhibit distinct temperatures and chemical compositions.

The recent findings appeared in a study published in Nature Astronomy.

A World Stuck in Time

WASP-121 b is part of a group of gas giants known as hot Jupiters. These massive planets orbit their stars in just a few days and eventually become locked in place by gravity. Tidal forces keep one side facing the star at all times, while the other side never sees daylight.

“WASP-121 b is particularly extreme,” said co-author Tom Evans-Soma of the University of Newcastle, Australia. “Average temperatures on the dayside hemisphere are around 2,770 Kelvin, while those on the nightside are closer to about 1,000 Kelvin.”

The difference in temperature between the two hemispheres, which is about 1,775 degrees Celsius, makes WASP-121 b one of the most thermally extreme exoplanets known. The regions at the boundary between day and night, called terminators, are where the planet experiences constant morning or evening conditions. Scientists expected these areas to have different atmospheric properties, but only with the precision of JWST could these differences be directly observed.

Mapping the Atmosphere

The researchers used a method based on the planet’s transit across its star to study these differences. As WASP-121 b passes in front of its star, it rotates by about 30 degrees, which means that different parts of its atmosphere can be observed during each transit. By tracking how infrared starlight filters through the atmosphere over time, the team reconstructed how temperature and chemical composition change across different longitudes.

“By measuring how starlight absorption changes as WASP-121 b rotates, we probe its atmosphere longitude by longitude,” said lead author Cyril Gapp of MPIA. The observations not only confirmed what models had predicted, but also showed that the differences between the two terminators are even greater than expected.

Two Different Skies

The evening side of the planet’s terminator absorbs more starlight than the morning side. Powerful eastward winds sweep heat from the scorching dayside toward the nightside, with the evening region getting the first blast of this warmth. This extra heat causes the atmosphere there to puff up, allowing it to absorb even more starlight, as the observations showed.

Chemical measurements backed up these findings. Carbon monoxide absorption increased as the hotter regions of the evening came into view near the end of the transit. Water showed a different pattern. Rather than simply decreasing with higher temperatures, the researchers interpret the result as evidence that water molecules in the upper atmosphere are breaking apart, likely due to the intense heat at the evening terminator. This points to a real chemical change, not just a shift in molecular location.

The Cloud Problem

The morning side shows a different environment. Although models predicted a difference between the two terminators, they did not fully explain why the morning side appears cooler and more opaque. The most likely explanation involves clouds that are unlike those on Earth.

At the morning terminator, air comes in from the cold nightside. Temperatures may be low enough for silicate and mineral compounds to turn into tiny particles, forming clouds that block infrared radiation from below. This makes the atmosphere appear cooler than it really is underneath.

When the team adjusted their models to account for these clouds, the results more closely aligned with their observations. Still, confirming exactly how these clouds form and behave will require more advanced modeling, as cloud formation and evaporation in such extreme environments remain a major puzzle in exoplanet science.

A Method Ready to Scale

WASP-121 b has been the subject of previous studies, but JWST now enables astronomers to examine its atmosphere in detail, section by section. This approach is now also available for use with other exoplanets.

The team has already found other ultra-hot gas giants with the right temperatures and orbits for similar analysis. Using this method on other planets will help astronomers compare atmospheric conditions and deepen our understanding of extreme planetary environments.

Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.

James Webb has revealed that the sunrise and sunset sides of WASP-121 b have surprisingly different atmospheres. Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have discovered striking differences between the morning and evening sides of the atmosphere of WASP-121 b, an ultra-hot gas giant located far beyond our solar system. The findings provide the [...]

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has revealed a cosmic catastrophe, as winds extinguished a star-forming galaxy in the early universe, offering new insight into earlier strange observations.

Cosmic winds may destroy entire galaxies, according to new JWST research exploring the lingering mystery of why certain parts of the universe are unexpectedly devoid of growth.

The findings were published in a recent paper in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, revealing galactic-scale death in a universe just one billion years old, and potentially answering questions about previous troubling JWST observations.

James Webb Space Telescope Observation

Observations made by the JWST revealed cold gas, an essential star-forming material, blowing out of the CRISTAL-2 galaxy in a massive plume, severely degrading its ability to produce new stars. According to the researchers, it would take less than 50 million years for the galaxy to be completely dead if this activity keeps up, a mere blink in the scheme of a 13.8 billion-year-old universe.

Astronomers consider galaxies to be “dead” if they are no longer capable of producing fresh stars. Traditionally, astronomers expected that it would take billions of years for an old galaxy to slowly run out of fuel and burn out. However, JWST observations have continually captured events in the early universe that were not expected to occur until much later.

One of these was finding a host of dead galaxies in the early universe shortly after it first became operational in 2022. How galaxies could die so close to the beginning of the universe, without sufficient time to burn through their cold gas supplies, has long perplexed scientists.

Explaining Galaxy Death

As researchers began considering various explanations for the phenomenon, they initially settled on dark energy, essentially explaining one unknown with another. Dark energy is a theoretical substance that scientists believe drives the expansion of the universe and was once a stronger force than it is now. While the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument survey revealed last year that dark energy appears to be weakening over time, an exotic galaxy-killer is not required, according to this latest research.

Instead, researchers offer a much simpler explanation of powerful cosmic winds in the remote past. Conventional thinking has it that such powerful winds could only be generated by a supermassive black hole, yet these new observations challenge that assumption.

JWST Reveals the Culprit

CRISTAL-02 is a galaxy still in the making, composed of several smaller galaxies in the final stages of merging into a single system. Because the early universe was far denser than it is today, such collisions were much more common. During these mergers, gravitational forces funnel vast amounts of gas toward the galactic centers, triggering intense bursts of star formation.

Observations of CRISTAL-02 by the James Webb Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) revealed a star formation rate roughly twice that of similar galaxies. Ironically, this extraordinary burst of stellar activity is also generating a powerful cosmic wind that is stripping away the very gas needed to form new stars.

Compounding the effect, many of the newly formed stars rapidly exhaust their fuel and end their lives as supernovae, producing additional outflows that further deplete the galaxy’s star-forming material.

Together, these processes appear capable of shutting down star formation far more quickly than astronomers previously believed possible. Going forward, ongoing JWST observations are likely to continue challenging astronomers’ assumptions, as more evidence indicates that nearly half of the early universe’s massive galaxies were interacting—a finding which also suggests early “galactic deaths” like these may not be all that rare, after all.

The paper, “Multiphase Images of a Powerful Supernova-Driven Wind in the Early Universe,” appeared in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society on June 10, 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.

James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations of what astronomers call “little red dots” have intrigued researchers since their discovery in 2022.

Now, new data on the spectra of one of these dots, made possible with imagery obtained by Webb, may hold the answers researchers have long sought.

In a recent paper published in The Astrophysical Journal, a team of astronomers led by the University of Texas at Austin’s Vasily Kokorev revealed their intriguing observations of the little red dot GLIMPSE-17775 using the JWST.

Data collected by the JWST support the BH* scenario, the hypothesis that little red dots are supermassive black holes surrounded by a cloud of partially ionized gas.

JWST and the Little Red Dot

The recent JWST observation of GLIMPSE-17775 is the deepest spectral view of a little red dot ever captured, spanning 40 spectral lines and offering a powerful opportunity to compare the data with various theories about the object’s origins. Born only about 1.8 billion years after the Big Bang, or about 12 billion years ago, the object hails from the universe’s early days.

As with many of science’s most interesting discoveries, this observation was a fortunate accident, captured as the JWST was observing the Abell S1063 galaxy cluster, located in front of GLIMPSE-17775 from our point of view.

Gravitational lensing magnifies GIMPSE-17775, allowing JWST a better look at the object despite its extreme distance, and making the 30-spectrum JWST captured equivalent to hours of observations. 

“When we saw the spectrum for the first time, it was like having all the pieces of a puzzle scattered on the floor,” said Kokorev. “We picked up each piece of the puzzle, measured the lines, and started combining the different pieces into a mosaic. Maybe a few pieces looked like nothing at first, but then a couple of them came together, and we realized that there was something there.”

Explaining Little Red Dots

First appearing at around 600 million years after the Big Bang, the mysterious little red dots have puzzled scientists since they first came to light. The black hole scenario is just one of several that researchers have proposed as a possible explanation, although it is currently gaining the most support as more data comes in.

“I think part of the scientific community is converging on a singular picture — that little red dots can be explained by black hole star models. But none of the previous little red dots have all of the pieces of evidence in the same place,” Kokorev said. “With GLIMPSE-17775, we can test these models because of how deep and amazing this source’s spectrum is.”

The researchers interpret the data as showing a rapidly accreting black hole covered by a dense gas cocoon that reprocesses the black hole’s light into the spectrum observed by JWST.

Comparing the spectra to various models revealed some intriguing evidence for the BH* scenario. The helium, oxygen, and hydrogen lines don’t fit a simple rotating gas cloud model, but do correspond to an electron scattering, a broadening effect associated with a dense, layered gas cocoon.

Other lines, such as the 16 iron lines, suggest a powerful energy source, which could indicate a rapidly accreting black hole. Additionally, helium absorption and fluorescence are seen in the spectrum, signs that a powerful energy source is enveloped in a dense medium.

What JWST Didn’t See

Beyond this incredibly deep spectrum, other little red dot observations have been faint in X-rays, a form of emission that the gas cocoon, in the BH* scenario, is likely to absorb.

One strange quirk of GLIMPSE-17775 is that the spectrum was missing the portion that would indicate the little red dots’ signature dip in light emission, known as a Balmer break. However, supplementary data collected by the Hubble Space Telescope resolved this issue, identifying that interference from a giant host galaxy is the root cause.

“Everything fits, nothing is broken, and I think that makes the puzzle that is our universe even better,” Kokorev concluded. “Looking ahead, I’m eager to dive deeper and learn about what is powering the central engines of little red dots. While we think it’s a black hole, there are some other interesting theories being proposed, which is exciting. Maybe in a year or two, we’ll have the final answer to what powers these sources.”

The paper, “The Deepest GLIMPSE of a Dense Gas Cocoon Enshrouding a Little Red Dot,” appeared in The Astrophysical Journal on June 10, 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.

À peine un milliard d'années après le Big Bang, cette galaxie connaît une croissance fulgurante en formant des étoiles à un rythme exceptionnel. Pourtant, les astronomes ont découvert qu'elle expulse simultanément d'immenses quantités de gaz, le combustible indispensable à sa survie. Une...

Il telescopio spaziale James Webb sta offrendo una visione senza precedenti dell’universo primordiale grazie alla sua capacità di osservare la luce infrarossa proveniente da oggetti estremamente lontani. Tra le sue scoperte più sorprendenti figurano galassie molto luminose e apparentemente mature esistite poche centinaia di milioni di anni dopo il Big Bang. Queste osservazioni hanno acceso un intenso dibattito scientifico, poiché suggeriscono che la crescita delle prime strutture cosmiche potrebbe essere avvenuta più rapidamente del previsto. Sebbene analisi successive abbiano ridimensionato alcune delle stime iniziali, Webb continua a fornire dati che stanno portando gli astronomi a perfezionare le teorie sulla formazione delle galassie, dei buchi neri supermassicci e dell’universo delle origini.

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, and with a little help from Einstein, astronomers have "weighed" a sleeping giant, a dormant supermassive black hole located a staggering 10 billion light-years away.

Le télescope spatial James-Webb de la Nasa a recueilli sa première signature chimique infrarouge moyenne d'un objet interstellaire lors d'une récente observation de la comète 3I/Atlas. Les résultats concernant la composition chimique et le comportement de la comète sont étranges.

An interstellar comet just revealed hidden methane and chemical clues from another star system. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has achieved another milestone by capturing the first mid-infrared chemical fingerprint of an interstellar object. The observations focused on comet 3I/ATLAS, a rare visitor from beyond our solar system, and the findings have been published in [...]

A dark void once dismissed as cosmic dust may be a far more fascinating dance of black holes.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has observed what appear to be very distant red galaxies challenging the standard big bang theory. Misidentifying some Brown Dwarf stars within our Milky Way as these red distant galaxies brings into question the existing cosmological models.

An article claims scientists found evidence of biological activity on exoplanet K2-18b, citing detected molecules linked to microbial life. However, this overstates findings, because some other chemical processes may explain the results. The inordinate desire to find extraterrestrial life reflects a rejection of the Creator.

In 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope discovered six massive Little Red Dot galaxies dated 500–800 million years post-Big Bang. Their presence challenges the ΛCDM cosmological model, as they contain unexpectedly high stellar masses. Recent findings have increased their count to 341, raising questions about galaxy formation and the validity of current theories.