Astronomy news

• Scientists find youngest exoplanet on record — a 'newborn' named Elias

  17-09-2026 12:00 via space.com
  
  Astronomers have discovered the youngest exoplanet on record, and they spotted the "newborn" world hiding in old data archives. About as massive as Jupiter, the newly-discovered exoplanet Elias 2-24 b is one big baby —despite its hefty size, Elias 2-24 b is by far the youngest planet ever found, thought to be less than a million years old. In fact, the exoplanet (or, planet outside of our solar system) was located 450 light-years away from Earth, still resting in the swirling gas and dust
  
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• Space weather caused a 16-minute train delay in 1848: 'Our research has a hint of a detective story'

  17-09-2026 00:00 via space.com
  
  Detective work by a team of space-weather experts has discovered the truth about a historical event that had been thought to be the first-ever case of technological disruption by geomagnetic activity from the sun, but has now been shown to have taken place seven years later.From it being too hot or too wet to leaves on the track or cows on the line, there's a fine tradition of what the British public consider to be flimsy excuses for delays on the trains. Yet an 1871 edition of the journal Natur
  
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