Webb finds a hidden atmosphere on a molten super-Earth

A blazing hot planet orbiting its star in less than 11 hours has stunned astronomers by somehow keeping a thick atmosphere despite being blasted by radiation that should have stripped it bare billions of years ago. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, researchers discovered that TOI-561 b, a super-Earth circling just one million miles from its host star, is significantly cooler than expected because strong atmospheric winds transport heat from its molten dayside to its permanently dark nightside.

The planet defies conventional wisdom about small rocky worlds surviving so close to their stars. "It's really like a wet lava ball," explains co-author Tim Lichtenberg, describing how gases bubble up from a global magma ocean while simultaneously being sucked back into the planet's interior.

This ancient world, orbiting a star twice as old as our Sun, likely formed when the universe was much younger and may hold clues about how early planetary systems evolved in dramatically different chemical environments than our own solar system.