Free Astronomy Magazine September-October 2026

48 ASTRO PUBLISHING SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2026 Webb studies how planet survived death of its star by NASA/ESA/CSA Laura Betz, Bethany Downer, Christine Pulliam N ASA’s James Webb Space Tel- escope is giving us new in- sight into the far-future of solar systems like our own, as the agency continues to reveal the se- crets of the Universe and our place in it. Billions of years ago, a Sun-like star nearing the end of its life swelled tremendously in size to be- come a red giant before ejecting its outer layers, leaving a hot, remnant core known as a white dwarf. As a red giant, the star should have en- gulfed and destroyed any nearby planets. Yet astronomers have found a Jupiter-sized exoplanet orbiting the white dwarf every 34 hours at a separation of less than 2 million miles (3 million kilometers). To solve the mystery of how this ex- oplanet survived, an international team of astronomers used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to watch the Jupiter-sized exoplanet WD 1856 b transit its host star, meas- uring the planet’s temperature and detecting molecules in its atmos- phere. They found the planet is sig-