Embargoed until 14:00 CET Tuesday March 24, 2026: An international team of astronomers have made the groundbreaking discovery of a second planet in the same system where they discovered another planet last year.

Detected at an early stage of formation in the disc around a young star, the young planet named WISPIT 2c is estimated to be about 5 million years-old and most likely ten times the mass of Jupiter.

The star, WISPIT 2 is located in the constellation of the Eagle, a prominent equatorial constellation visible in the summer northern hemisphere (July-November) along the Milky Way.

The study was led by PhD student, Chloe Lawlor from the Centre for Astronomy at the University of Galway, in collaboration with PhD student Richelle van Capelleveen, Leiden Observatory, Netherlands and postdoctoral researcher Guillaume Bourdarot, Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany.

Swarms of pico-satellites could work together as a single large antenna for direct-to-smartphone communications, as reported by researchers from Japan. Instead of relying on a single large satellite with a phased-array antenna, the team showed that pico-satellites orbiting Earth in formation could each carry individual phased-array elements and be synchronized wirelessly. The proof-of-principle experiment demonstrated reliable, high-quality data transmission, paving the way for cheaper, more reliable network coverage worldwide.

Astronomers at the University of Liège have just solved a fifty-year-old stellar mystery! A study of the prototype Be star, γ Cassiopeia, provides the first direct evidence that this emission originates from a magnetic white dwarf orbiting the star.