Astronomers may have found the first convincing evidence of a moon-like object beyond our Solar System — but calling it a "moon" turns out to be surprisingly complicated.

Using the CRIRES+ instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope, researchers detected evidence of a massive object orbiting a brown dwarf in the young CD-35 2722 system. The newly detected object is at least as massive as Jupiter, while its brown-dwarf companion is more than 30 times Jupiter's mass. That brown dwarf, in turn, orbits a star.

So what exactly have astronomers discovered: a moon, a planet, an exosatellite — or something that shows our familiar astronomical labels aren't quite ready for the diversity of other planetary systems?

Join SETI Institute senior planetary astronomer Dr. Franck Marchis and lead author Kevin Hoy as they explore how astronomers detected this unusual object, why previous exomoon candidates have been so difficult to confirm, and what this strange system could teach us about how planets, moons, and brown dwarfs form.

Press release: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2610/
Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10751-w

Why do some solar eruptions blast into space while others never make it?

SETI Institute heliophysicist Dr. Becca Robinson talks with Dr. Kathy Reeves of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian about new research revealing what can stop a solar eruption in its tracks.

Using observations of a failed solar eruption in March 2024, Reeves and her colleagues examined how the Sun's complex magnetic fields can both drive an eruption upward and ultimately prevent it from escaping. Their research shows how magnetic reconnection above an eruption can weaken it, while strong overlying magnetic fields act as a kind of cage, trapping the material before it can develop into a coronal mass ejection.

Understanding why some solar eruptions succeed while others fail could improve our understanding of space weather—and may even help explain why astronomers see powerful flares on other stars but relatively few stellar coronal mass ejections.

What determines whether an eruption escapes? What can this event teach us about the Sun's magnetic environment? And what could it tell us about space weather around other stars and planets?

Press release: https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/astronomers-uncover-why-some-solar-eruptions-die

Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-026-02872-z

One of the coldest planetary-mass objects ever directly imaged has been hiding something unusual in its atmosphere: salt clouds.

Known as the "Pink Planet," GJ 504 b is a mysterious world orbiting a Sun-like star about 57 light-years from Earth. At roughly 25 times Jupiter's mass, it lies near the uncertain boundary between giant planets and brown dwarfs. It is also so cold and faint that previous attempts to study its atmosphere from the ground were unsuccessful.

Now, JWST has captured the first direct spectrum of GJ 504 b. The observations revealed an atmosphere containing water vapor, methane, carbon dioxide, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and other molecules. When researchers modeled the spectrum, they found that clouds—particularly salt clouds—were essential to explaining what JWST observed.

Join host Dr. Moiya McTier and lead author Dr. Aneesh Baburaj (Northwestern University) to learn how astronomers separated the faint light of GJ 504 b from the glare of its host star, what salt clouds can tell us about cold planetary atmospheres, and why scientists still are not sure whether the Pink Planet formed like a planet or a star.

Read the paper:
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/ae6919

Read the Northwestern University story:
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2026/06/famous-pink-planet-harbors-a-salty-surprise