Webb Telescope Reveals Dark, Airless Exoplanet Resembling Mercury

Forty-eight light-years from Earth, the James Webb Space Telescope has turned its gaze upon a world that may be a mirror of planetary endings — a dark, airless rock called LHS 3844 b, stripped of atmosphere and geological renewal, orbiting its star in relentless, scorching proximity. Astronomers did not photograph it so much as listen to its heat, reading the infrared signature of a surface that resembles Mercury more than home. In this barren world, science finds not merely a distant curiosity, but a possible portrait of what becomes of rocky planets when time, radiation, and proximity to a s