Astronomers find mysterious lemon-shaped exoplanet with NASA's Webb telescope

Space is full of unsolved mysteries, and a team using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have recently turned up a doozy. "I remember after we got the data down, our collective reaction was 'What the heck is this?' It's extremely different from what we expected," said Peter Gao of the Carnegie Earth and Planets Laboratory in Washington, a co-author on the study.

The researchers found an exoplanet dubbed PSR J2322-2650b that orbits a small, dense star emitting electromagnetic radiation known as a pulsar. They are an example of a black widow system, where a rapidly spinning pulsar is paired with a smaller astronomical body. A black widow duo isn’t unusual, but this pair has sparked questions about how the exoplanet originally formed.

The exoplanet's proximity to the pulsar and its intense gravitational pull have distor...