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    Astronomers shocked by how these giant exoplanets formed

    February 13, 2026, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    drawing of gas giant planet being bombarded by meteorites
    One way gas giants form is through core accretion, where solid cores gradually grow in a disk by pulling in rocky and icy pebbles until they become massive enough to attract the gas that surrounds young stars. (cr: Jean-Baptiste Ruffio)

    JWST just found evidence that some “super-Jupiters” may have formed like planets, not failed stars. A distant star system with four super-sized gas giants has revealed a surprise. Thanks to JWST’s powerful vision, astronomers detected sulfur in their atmospheres — a chemical clue that they formed like Jupiter, by slowly building solid cores. That’s unexpected because these planets are far bigger and orbit much farther from their star than models once allowed.

    Gas giants are enormous planets made primarily of hydrogen and helium...

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    Unified model explains extreme jet streams on all giant planets

    October 13, 2025, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    New model explains extreme jet streams on all giant planets
    The gas giants Jupiter and Saturn exhibit eastward-flowing equatorial jet streams, while the ice giants Uranus and Neptune have westward-flowing ones. This work demonstrates that, under similar conditions, a jet stream can form in either direction, suggesting a common underlying mechanism may govern the atmospheric dynamics of all four planets. The two simulation snapshots illustrate these possible outcomes. Credit: Keren Duer-Milner

    One of the most notable properties of the giant planets in our solar system—Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune—are the extreme winds observed around their equators. While some of these planets have eastward equatorial winds, others have a westward jet stream...

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