Anonymousabout 3 hours ago
Astronomers have identified L 98-59 d, a super-Earth 35 light-years from Earth with a permanent magma ocean and a hydrogen-sulfide-rich atmosphere, as the first member of a proposed new class of exoplanets that fits neither the gas-dwarf nor water-world categories. Published in Nature Astronomy in March 2026, the finding — built on JWST spectroscopy and five-billion-year evolutionary models — challenges existing planetary classification schemes and raises questions about the diversity of worlds orbiting M-dwarf stars.