William Smith

Did James Webb Find a Planet That Disappeared? In August 2024, the James Webb Space Telescope picked up a faint signal near Alpha Centauri A, one of the closest Sun-like stars to Earth, about 4.4 light-years away. Astronomers think the signal, called S1, could be a gas giant roughly the mass of Saturn. Webb detected it by blocking much of the star's bright light and studying what remained. But when Webb observed the same region again in February and April 2025, the signal was nowhere to be found. One possible explanation is that the planet moved too close to its star's glare for Webb to detect it. Computer simulations show how that could happen, but scientists still need more observations. For now, S1 remains an unconfirmed planet candidate. We may have caught a glimpse of a giant planet in our nearest neighboring star system, but the evidence isn't conclusive yet. Research Sources NASA - Webb Finds New Evidence for Planet Around Closest Solar Twin science.nasa.gov/missions/we… ESA - Webb's Alpha Centauri Discovery esawebb.org/news/weic2515/ Original Scientific Study — The Astrophysical Journal Letters 2025 doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ad… NASA - Actual Webb MIRI Observation science.nasa.gov/asset/webb/…