A groundbreaking study suggests that our early Sun may have been encircled by massive rings of dust—structures that shaped the very layout of our Solar System and may have prevented Earth from becoming a super-Earth.

According to researchers, these dusty rings were created by pressure “bumps”—high-pressure zones caused as particles spiraled inward, heated up, and released gases through vaporization.

These zones formed sublimation lines, where materials like silicates, water ice, and carbon monoxide turned from solid to gas. As a result, dust got trapped instead of falling into the Sun, clumping into planetesimals—the seeds of planets.

Simulations showed that:

The inner ring gave rise to Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars

The middle ring helped birth the gas giants

The outer ring contributed to comets, asteroids, and Kuiper Belt objects

Interestingly, had the middle ring formed a bit later, more material could have gathered in the inner Solar System—potentially allowing super-Earths to form. Their absence is one of the mysteries that sets our planetary system apart from others across the galaxy.

RESEARCH PAPER
Andre Izidoro et al., Planetesimal rings as the cause of the Solar System’s planetary architecture, Nature Astronomy (2022)

WASP-121 b, an exoplanet located 855 light-years from Earth, is one of the most extreme worlds ever discovered. This scorching hot Jupiter is tidally locked to its star, with one side eternally scorched and the other cloaked in night.

On its blistering day side, temperatures soar above 3,000 K (2,700°C / 4,900°F), while the night side cools to around 1,500 K (1,226°C / 2,240°F). This dramatic contrast fuels violent winds that rip across the planet at incredible speeds, dragging atoms and water molecules from day to night.

On the cooler night side, metal clouds begin to form—composed of vanadium, iron, chromium, calcium, sodium, magnesium, and nickel. Scientists believe aluminum and oxygen may bond to create corundum—the mineral that, when laced with traces of other metals, forms liquid rubies and sapphires that may rain down from the sky.

Researchers aim to use the James Webb Space Telescope to search for carbon monoxide, unlocking new clues about the formation of hot Jupiters like WASP-121 b.

RESEARCH PAPER
Thomas Mikal-Evans et al., Diurnal variations in the stratosphere of the ultrahot giant exoplanet WASP-121b, Nature Astronomy (2022)

Earth, a tiny blue dot framed by Saturn’s majestic rings.

#EarthFromSpace #SaturnRings #Astronomy

China is once again shaking up the world of astronomy — this time with a colossal 120-meter mobile radio telescope, reportedly under construction in Jilin. Unlike traditional static telescopes, this one can move and track objects across the sky in real-time, offering astronomers far more flexibility in deep-space exploration.

But that’s not all. This mega-telescope joins a growing network of 24 smaller 40-meter telescopes being installed across China, many of which support or complement the already-operational FAST (Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope) — the world’s largest stationary radio dish.

Together, these telescopes will allow China to detect faint signals from the farthest reaches of the cosmos, search for exoplanets, track asteroids, and even send calibrated signals to space with unprecedented accuracy.

While many countries scale back budgets, China is building the future of space science — one giant dish at a time.

#ChinaTelescope #FASTTelescope #RadioAstronomy #SpaceExploration #DeepSpaceScience

Meet BD+05 4868 b — one of the most extreme exoplanets ever found. Located 140 light-years away, this scorching world orbits its star every 30.5 hours, putting it 20 times closer than Mercury is to our Sun.

At that range, the heat is so intense it’s vaporizing the planet’s rocky surface, creating a dust tail over 9 million kilometers long — nearly half of its orbit!

Nicknamed the “melting Mercury”, this tiny planet is losing mass fast — about the size of Mount Everest every orbit. With weak gravity and a shrinking core, scientists believe the planet could completely vanish within 1 to 2 million years.

But there’s a silver lining: this doomed planet’s dusty trail gives astronomers a rare chance to study the interior makeup of a rocky exoplanet — potentially unlocking secrets of how planets form and what makes them habitable.

Research by: Marc Hon et al., The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2025)
Title: "A Disintegrating Rocky Planet with Prominent Comet-like Tails around a Bright Star"

#Exoplanet #SpaceDiscovery #Astronomy #MeltingPlanet #ScienceNews #Cosmos #JWST #SpaceDust #PlanetHunting #Astrophysics