Dec 17, 2025 12:55 AM
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1110250
INTRO: Scientists using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have observed an entirely new type of exoplanet whose atmospheric composition challenges our understanding of how this type of planet forms.
This bizarre, lemon-shaped body, possibly containing diamonds at its core, blurs the line between planets and stars.
Officially named PSR J2322-2650b, this object has an exotic helium-and-carbon-dominated atmosphere unlike any ever seen before. It has a mass about the same as Jupiter, but soot clouds float through the air—and deep within the planet, these carbon clouds can condense and form diamonds. It orbits a rapidly spinning neutron star.
How the planet came to be is a mystery.
“The planet orbits a star that's completely bizarre — the mass of the Sun, but the size of a city,” explained the University of Chicago’s Michael Zhang, the principal investigator on this study, which is accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. “This is a new type of planet atmosphere that nobody has ever seen before.”
“This was an absolute surprise,” said team member Peter Gao of the Carnegie Earth and Planets Laboratory in Washington, D.C. “I remember after we got the data down, our collective reaction was ‘What the heck is this?’” (MORE - details, no ads)
INTRO: Scientists using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have observed an entirely new type of exoplanet whose atmospheric composition challenges our understanding of how this type of planet forms.
This bizarre, lemon-shaped body, possibly containing diamonds at its core, blurs the line between planets and stars.
Officially named PSR J2322-2650b, this object has an exotic helium-and-carbon-dominated atmosphere unlike any ever seen before. It has a mass about the same as Jupiter, but soot clouds float through the air—and deep within the planet, these carbon clouds can condense and form diamonds. It orbits a rapidly spinning neutron star.
How the planet came to be is a mystery.
“The planet orbits a star that's completely bizarre — the mass of the Sun, but the size of a city,” explained the University of Chicago’s Michael Zhang, the principal investigator on this study, which is accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. “This is a new type of planet atmosphere that nobody has ever seen before.”
“This was an absolute surprise,” said team member Peter Gao of the Carnegie Earth and Planets Laboratory in Washington, D.C. “I remember after we got the data down, our collective reaction was ‘What the heck is this?’” (MORE - details, no ads)