James Webb catches a giant helium cloud pouring off a puffy planet

James Webb catches a giant helium cloud pouring off a puffy planet

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have captured dramatic helium streams pouring off the super-puff exoplanet WASP-107b, revealing a world with an enormously inflated, weakly bound atmosphere under intense stellar heat. The detection of helium, water, and various chemical compounds—alongside the surprising absence of methane—paints a picture of a planet that formed far from its star but later migrated inward, where scorching radiat…