Uploaded December 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
This animation shows an exotic exoplanet orbiting a distant pulsar, or rapidly rotating neutron star with radio pulses. The planet, which orbits about 1 million miles away from the pulsar, is stretched into a lemon shape by the pulsar’s strong gravitational tides. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope found that the planet’s atmospheric composition defies explanation. They detected molecular carbon, specifically C3 and C2, which would only be expected if there were almost no oxygen or nitrogen.
The pulsar’s characteristic radio beams wobble or precess as the pulsar spins because they are angled about 30 degrees from the pulsar’s spin axis. This animation is not to scale. The pulsar spins almost 300 times per second, while the planet orbits once every 7.8 hours.
Read more: science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-observes-exoplanet-whose-composition-defies-explanation
[Note: there is no sound.]
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)
This animation shows an exotic exoplanet orbiting a distant pulsar, or rapidly rotating neutron star with radio pulses. The planet, which orbits about 1 million miles away from the pulsar, is stretched into a lemon shape by the pulsar’s strong gravitational tides. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope found that the planet’s atmospheric composition defies explanation. They detected molecular carbon, specifically C3 and C2, which would only be expected if there were almost no oxygen or nitrogen.
The pulsar’s characteristic radio beams wobble or precess as the pulsar spins because they are angled about 30 degrees from the pulsar’s spin axis. This animation is not to scale. The pulsar spins almost 300 times per second, while the planet orbits once every 7.8 hours.
Read more: science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-observes-exoplanet-whose-composition-defies-explanation
[Note: there is no sound.]
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)
