Famous 'Pink Planet' harbors a salty surprise

Northwestern University-led astronomers have discovered salty skies surrounding the universe's famous "Pink Planet." For more than a decade, the ancient, rosy-hazed world kept astronomers guessing.

One of the coldest known planetary-mass companions ever directly imaged, the elusive object is too faint for astronomers to dissect its light from Earth.

But new observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reveal an atmosphere filled with exotic chemistry—and salty clouds unlike anything seen before. ...