{"id":236580,"date":"2026-05-05T23:19:03","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T04:19:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/jwst-pins-down-the-origins-of-a-planetary-odd-couple"},"modified":"2026-05-05T23:19:03","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T04:19:03","slug":"jwst-pins-down-the-origins-of-a-planetary-odd-couple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/jwst-pins-down-the-origins-of-a-planetary-odd-couple","title":{"rendered":"JWST pins down the origins of a planetary odd couple"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/jwst-pins-down-the-origins-of-a-planetary-odd-couple.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Across the Milky Way galaxy, a planetary odd couple is circling a star some 190 light years from Earth. A normally \u201clonely\u201d hot Jupiter is sharing space with a mini-Neptune, in a rare and unlikely pairing that\u2019s had astronomers puzzled since the system\u2019s discovery in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Now MIT scientists have caught a glimpse into the atmosphere of the mini-Neptune, which is circling inside the orbit of its Jupiter-sized companion, and discovered clues to explain the origins of this unusual planetary system.<\/p>\n<p>In a study <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3847\/2041-8213\/ae5f8b\" target=\"_blank\">appearing in <i>Astrophysical Journal Letters<\/i><\/a>, the scientists report on new measurements of the <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2022-11-atmosphere-europe-jwst-astronomers-climate.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">mini-Neptune\u2019s atmosphere<\/a>, made using NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). It is the first time astronomers have measured the composition of a mini-Neptune that resides inside the orbit of a hot Jupiter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Across the Milky Way galaxy, a planetary odd couple is circling a star some 190 light years from Earth. A normally \u201clonely\u201d hot Jupiter is sharing space with a mini-Neptune, in a rare and unlikely pairing that\u2019s had astronomers puzzled since the system\u2019s discovery in 2020. Now MIT scientists have caught a glimpse into the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236580\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}