๐ญ James Webb Mapped Two Completely Different Skies on a Scorching Tidally Locked Exoplanet
The James Webb Space Telescope studied the twilight zones of WASP-121b, an ultra-hot gas giant permanently locked facing its star, and found morning and evening edges that differ by a staggering 1,775 degrees Celsius. Fierce winds carry heat from the blazing dayside, puffing up the evening atmosphere, while the cooler morning side shows signs of mineral clouds and water being torn apart by extreme heat. The findings, published in Nature Astronomy in June 2026, are the clearest confirmation yet of predictions that previously existed only in theoretical models. What else might we learn once we can read an alien world's weather in this much detail?
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