The historic 1845 telescope at the Cincinnati Observatory. Credit: Andrew Higley One night last fall, University of Cincinnati astrophysics graduate Paul Smith waited anxiously for data to start rolling across his computer screen from the James Webb Space Telescope a million miles from Earth. The telescope was directed at an object even farther away—much farther away. Smith is studying a planet 901 light years away. That means light from its star takes 901 years to reach Earth. The planet is named after this star, TOI-2031A, in accordance with NASA's unpoetic, numbered naming conventions. The TOI stands for Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite Object of Interest. Even though it was a clear night, the star was too faint to see with the naked eye. Its starlight captured in the space telescope was generated in the Middle Ages. Smith and his research partners beat out other scientists for precious telescope time.…