Direct confirmation of two baby planets forming around a young, sun-like star

As the number of exoplanet detections has breached 6,000 and continues to grow, scientists are finding a wide variety of different solar system architectures. Critical to understanding how these architectures take shape is finding young planets forming around very young stars. In 2025, a team of astronomers announced the discovery of a planet about five times more massive than Jupiter around a star that's very much a younger version of our sun.

AI approach uncovers dozens of hidden planets in NASA's TESS data

Astronomers at the University of Warwick have validated over 100 exoplanets, including 31 newly detected planets, using a new artificial intelligence tool applied to data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a space mission that monitors the sky for the subtle dimming of starlight caused when planets pass in front of their host stars.

Moons orbiting wandering exoplanets could be habitable—with one catch

Provided they host thick, hydrogen-dominated atmospheres, moons orbiting free-floating exoplanets could retain much of the heat generated deep within their interiors by tidal forces. Led by David Dahlbüdding at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and Giulia Roccetti at the European Space Agency, a new study predicts that hydrogen could act as a potent greenhouse gas—potentially providing habitable conditions for billions of years after their host planets are first ejected from their stellar systems. The work has been published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

What 'Project Hail Mary' gets right—and wrong—about astrophysics

"Project Hail Mary," the Ryan Gosling-led adaptation of the best-selling sci-fi novel from Andy Weir, is being praised for putting the science in science fiction. Although aliens, sun-draining microorganisms and galaxy-spanning spaceflight are all a part of the story of a scientist sent on a suicide mission to save Earth, the film and its source material are not afraid to delve into the kind of astrophysics that would make most people's heads spin.

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The best places to look for alien life: Scientists identify 45 Earth-like worlds to explore for a 'Project Hail Mary'

If we're to find extraterrestrial life in the universe, astronomers have pinpointed the best places to look for it. They have identified just under 50 rocky worlds most likely to be habitable out of the more than 6,000 exoplanets discovered so far.

New study complicates the search for alien oxygen

Oxygen has been the most important gas in our search for life among the cosmos thus far. On Earth, we have it in abundance because it is produced by biological synthesis. But that might not be the case on other planets, so even if we do find a very clear high oxygen signal in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, it might not be a clear indication that life exists there. A new paper, available in pre-print on arXiv, by Margaret Turcotte Seavey and a team of researchers from institutions like the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Johns Hopkins University, adds some additional context to what else might be going on in those atmospheres. In particular, they note that if there's even a little bit of water vapor, it can make a big difference in whether a lifeless rock looks like a living, thriving world.