The gas giant WD 1856 b should have been swallowed when its star ballooned into a red giant. Webb found methane, haze, and a faint leftover heat in its air, and that heat became the clue to how the planet survived.
A gas giant called WD 1856 b has done something no planet was supposed to survive. Its star aged, swelled into a red giant, and collapsed into a white dwarf, the burned-out cinder a Sun-like star lea… [+6677 chars]