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Exoplanet WD 1856 b (Artist’s Concept)

An orange gas giant planet at left, taking up about one-third of the frame, facing a star, which appears at top right as a far smaller bright dot. The planet has subtle orange cloud bands. The star illuminates the right side of the planet like the crescent of a waxing moon. Both are on the black background of space. The words “artist’s concept” are in the bottom right corner.

Exoplanet WD 1856 b, shown in this artist’s concept, is a gas giant that survived the death of its star. It now orbits a white dwarf at a distance 50 times closer than Earth orbits the Sun. Observations by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope not only determined the planet’s temperature but also detected molecules in its atmosphere. The former measurement provides evidence that WD 1856 b migrated to its current location billions of years after its star became a white dwarf.

  • Release Date
    July 1, 2026
  • Science Release
    NASA’s Webb Studies How Planet Survived Death of its Star
    Read the release
  • Credit
    Artwork: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)

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Related Images & Videos

Graphic titled u201cGas giant exoplanet WD 1856 b, transmission spectrum, NIRSpec PRISMu201d shows a graph of amount of light blocked by percent on the y-axis and wavelength of light in microns on the x-axis. The y-axis ranges from 55.2% to 56.5% with tick marks every 0.1% and labels at 55.5 and 56.0. The x-axis ranges from 0.5 to 4.0 microns with tick marks every 0.5 microns. A thick purple line outlined with two semi-translucent bands has an inner line thatu2019s darker and an outer line thatu2019s lighter. The purple line is wavy and runs higher, in the top third, until about 3.5 microns, where it drops to 55.2 on the y-axis and 4.0 on the x-axis. Five humps are highlighted by vertical red bars, indicating the presence of methane. White circles representing data points are scattered above and below the purple line. A key shows that the purple line is the best fit model, red highlights methane, and white circles represent data.

Exoplanet WD 1856 b (Transmission Spectrum)

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope measured the constituents of exoplanet WD 1856 b as it passed in front of its star, finding signs of methane. WD 1856 b orbits a white dwarf star the size of Earth. As a result, the planet blocks more than half of the star’s light.

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Details

Last Updated
Jul 01, 2026
Location
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Contact
Media

Laura Betz
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
laura.e.betz@nasa.gov

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