Small, cool and sulfurous exoplanet may help write recipe for planetary formation

Astronomers observing exoplanet GJ 3470 b saw evidence of water, carbon dioxide, methane and sulfur dioxide, findings that UW–Madison astronomer Thomas Beatty presented in Madison today at the 244th meeting of the American Astronomical Society and that he will soon publish in Astrophysical Journal Letters with co-authors from Arizona State University, the University of Arizona, NASA’s Ames Research Center and other organizations.

Galaxies Actively Forming in Early Universe Caught Feeding on Cold Gas

A team in Denmark examining archival data from the James Webb Space Telescope recently found a trio of distant galaxies that are in the process of gathering gas when the universe was only a few hundred million years old. Their detection and characterization are remarkable achievements that only Webb is currently capable of, thanks to its specialization in infrared light.