A young gas giant and hidden substructures in a protoplanetary disk
Star flares when an orbiting planet gets too close
Nature, Published online: 16 July 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-02201-w
A planet that orbits closely to its young host star has been observed to induce large magnetic eruptions on the star. These flares might rapidly blow away the planet’s atmosphere, leaving behind a dense core within a few hundred million years.Refractory solid condensation detected in an embedded protoplanetary disk
Nature, Published online: 16 July 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09163-z
Observations at infrared and millimetre wavelengths of the young protostar HOPS-315 show a gaseous disk captured at the point at which solids are first starting to condense, the t = 0 for planet formation.Birth of a solar system caught ‘on camera’ for first time
Nature, Published online: 16 July 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-02245-y
Astronomers get rare glimpse of earliest stages of planet formation around a baby star.The origin of the oldest solid objects in the Solar System
Nature, Published online: 16 July 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-02058-z
Observations of a young star offer a glimpse of the high-temperature conditions that shaped rock formation in the early Solar System.NASA’s Chandra Finds Baby Exoplanet is Shrinking
A star is unleashing a barrage of X-rays that is causing a closely-orbiting, young planet to wither away an astonishing rate, according to a new study using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and described in our latest press release. A team of researchers has determined that this planet will go from the size of Jupiter down to a small, barren world.
This graphic provides a visual representation of what astronomers think is happening around the star (known as TOI 1227) and a planet that is orbiting it at a fraction the distance between Mercury and the Sun. This “baby” planet, called TOI 1227 b, is just about 8 million years old, about a thousand times younger than our Sun. The main panel is an artist’s concept that shows the Jupiter-sized planet (lower left) around TOI 1227, which is a faint red star. Powerful X-rays from the star’s surface are tearing away the atmosphere of the planet, represented by the blue tail. The star’s X-rays may eventually completely remove the atmosphere.
The team used new Chandra data — seen in the inset — to measure the amounts of X-rays from TOI 1227 that are striking the planet. Using computer models of the effects of these X-rays, they concluded they will have a transformative effect, rapidly stripping away the planet’s atmosphere. They estimate that the planet is losing a mass equivalent to a full Earth’s atmosphere about every 200 years.
The researchers used different sets of data to estimate the age of TOI 1227 b. One method exploits measurements of how TOI 1227 b’s host star moves through space in comparison to nearby populations of stars with known ages. A second method compared the brightness and surface temperature of the star with theoretical models of evolving stars. The very young age of TOI 1227 b makes it the second youngest planet ever to be observed passing in front of its host star (a so-called transit). Previously the planet had been estimated by others to be about 11 million years old.
Of all the exoplanets astronomers have found with ages less than 50 million years, TOI 1227 b stands out for having the longest year and the host planet with the lowest mass. These properties, and the high dose of X-rays it is receiving, make it an outstanding target for future observations.
A paper describing these results has been accepted publication in The Astrophysical Journal and a preprint is available here. The authors of the paper are Attila Varga (Rochester Institute of Technology), Joel Kastner (Rochester Institute of Technology), Alexander Binks (University of Tubingen, Germany), Hans Moritz Guenther (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and Simon J. Murphy (University of New South Wales Canberra in Australia).
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray ObservatoryLearn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:
Visual DescriptionThis release features an artist’s illustration of a Jupiter-sized planet closely orbiting a faint red star. An inset image, showing the star in X-ray light from Chandra, is superimposed on top of the illustration at our upper left corner.
At our upper right, the red star is illustrated as a ball made of intense fire. The planet, slightly smaller than the star, is shown at our lower left. Powerful X-rays from the star are tearing away the atmosphere of the planet, causing wisps of material to flow away from the planet’s surface in the opposite direction from the star. This gives the planet a slight resemblance to a comet, complete with a tail.
X-ray data from Chandra, presented in the inset image, shows the star as a small purple orb on a black background. Astronomers used the Chandra data to measure the amount of X-rays striking the planet from the star. They estimate that the planet is losing a mass equivalent to a full Earth’s atmosphere about every 200 years, causing it to ultimately shrink from the size of Jupiter down to a small, barren world.
News Media ContactMegan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center
Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998
mwatzke@cfa.harvard.edu
Corinne Beckinger
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0034
corinne.m.beckinger@nasa.gov
- Astrophysics
- Chandra X-Ray Observatory
- Exoplanet Science
- Exoplanets
- Marshall Astrophysics
- Marshall Space Flight Center
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Hubble Observations Give “Missing” Globular Cluster Time to Shine
A previously unexplored globular cluster glitters with multicolored stars in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image. Globular clusters like this one, called ESO 591-12 or Palomar 8, are spherical collections of tens of thousands to millions of stars tightly bound together by gravity. Globular clusters generally form early in the galaxies’ histories in regions rich in gas and dust. Since the stars form from the same cloud of gas as it collapses, they typically hover around the same age. Strewn across this image of ESO 591-12 are a number of red and blue stars. The colors indicate their temperatures; red stars are cooler, while the blue stars are hotter.
Hubble captured the data used to create this image of ESO 591-12 as part of a study intended to resolve individual stars of the entire globular cluster system of the Milky Way. Hubble revolutionized the study of globular clusters since earthbound telescopes are unable to distinguish individual stars in the compact clusters. The study is part of the Hubble Missing Globular Clusters Survey, which targets 34 confirmed Milky Way globular clusters that Hubble has yet to observe.
The program aims to provide complete observations of ages and distances for all of the Milky Way’s globular clusters and investigate fundamental properties of still-unexplored clusters in the galactic bulge or halo. The observations will provide key information on the early stages of our galaxy, when globular clusters formed.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, and D. Massari (INAF — Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienza dello Spazio); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
Monster black hole merger is biggest ever seen
Nature, Published online: 15 July 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-02212-7
Gravitational-wave detector LIGO spots fast-spinning ‘forbidden’ black holes that challenge physics models.The mysterious missing ingredient in the highest-energy cosmic rays
Nature, Published online: 15 July 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-02227-0
Data from a South Pole observatory show that the fraction of protons in ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays is lower than expected.Water might be even more important for alien life than we thought
Mon 21 Jul 16:00: Bayesian Component Separation for DESI LAE Automated Spectroscopic Redshifts and Photometric Targeting
Lyman Alpha Emitters (LAEs) are valuable high-redshift cosmological probes traditionally targeted with specialized narrow-band photometric surveys. In ground-based spectroscopy, it can be difficult to distinguish the sharp LAE peak from residual sky emission lines, leading to misclassified redshifts. We present a Bayesian spectral component separation technique to automatically determine spectroscopic redshifts for LAEs while marginalizing over sky residuals. We use visually inspected DESI (Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument) LAE targets to create a data-driven prior and can determine redshift by jointly inferring sky residual, LAE , and residual components for each individual spectrum. We demonstrate this method on 910 photometrically targeted z = 2-4 DESI LAE candidate spectra and determine their redshifts with >90% accuracy compared to visually inspected redshifts. Using the chi-squared value from our pipeline as a proxy for detection confidence, we then explore potential survey design choices and implications for targeting LAEs with medium-band photometry. This method allows for scalability and accuracy in determining spectroscopic redshifts in DESI and the results provide recommendations for LAE targeting in anticipation of future high-redshift spectroscopic surveys, such as DESI -2.
- Speaker: Ana Sofía Uzsoy (Harvard)
- Monday 21 July 2025, 16:00-17:00
- Venue: Martin Ryle Seminar Room, KICC.
- Series: Astro Data Science Discussion Group; organiser: km723.
Mon 21 Jul 16:00: Bayesian Component Separation for DESI LAE Automated Spectroscopic Redshifts and Photometric Targeting
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Ana Sofía Uzsoy (Harvard)
- Monday 21 July 2025, 16:00-17:00
- Venue: Martin Ryle Seminar Room, KICC.
- Series: Astro Data Science Discussion Group; organiser: km723.