Dransfield suspects these fluffy, wispy worlds are probably white or blue, depending on whether the skies there are cloudy \u2014 not shades of cotton-candy pink. The planets are probably mostly hydrogen and helium, although it will take follow-up observations by NASA’s Webb Space Telescope to confirm their chemical makeup.<\/p>\n
Detected by NASA’s Tess satellite over the past decade, these two especially puffy puffs orbit a star in the southern constellation Volans, known as the flying fish. The researchers studied the planets’ orbits using telescopes on Earth to determine their density, from 1,110 light-years away. A light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles. <\/p>\n
![\"Cotton](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/ap26175637322496.jpg#.jpeg\")
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This illustration provided by NASA depicts the Sun-like star TOI-791, background left, and two giant planets that NASA’s TESS space telescope discovered in its orbit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Daniel Rutter\/NASA via AP<\/p>\n
In 2024, researchers found a super-puff planet<\/a> 1,200 light years from Earth, calling it a “cosmic mystery.”<\/p>\n Jupiter, by comparison, is as much as 35 times denser than these two lightweights.<\/p>\n The newly found planets also have unusually long orbits, with one taking 139 days and the other taking 232 days to circle the host star, NASA said in a news release<\/a>. <\/p>\n Considered rare in the cosmos, super-puffs are thought to form around the disk of gas and dust around a newborn star where there is more gas than dust. They shed much of the material over time, stripping down even more.<\/p>\n “The main reason these planets are interesting to study is that we didn’t expect to see them at all,” said Jon Jenkins<\/a>, the science lead for the Science Processing Operations Center at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. “They represent a puzzle for us to solve about how giant planets like Jupiter and the super-puffs form.”<\/p>\n NASA’s tally of worlds outside our solar system currently stands at nearly 6,300 confirmed. Fewer than 40 are super-puffs, according to Dransfield.<\/p>\n “Ultimately, by studying exotic systems containing rare planet types, we add further pieces to the puzzle of planet formation and learn more about our place in the cosmos,” she said.<\/p>\n \n Go deeper with The Free Press\n <\/p>\n