Blast Effect !

WASP-18 b Illustration

WASP-18 b, seen in an artist concept, is a gas giant exoplanet 10 times more massive than Jupiter that orbits its star in just 23 hours. Researchers used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to study the planet as it moved behind its star. Temperatures there reach 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,700 C).

Scientists identified water vapor in the atmosphere of WASP-18 b, and made a temperature map of the planet as it slipped behind, and reappeared from, its star. This event is known as a secondary eclipse. Scientists can read the combined light from star and planet, then refine the measurements from just the star as the planet moves behind it.

The same side, known as the dayside, of WASP-18 b always faces the star, just as the same side of the Moon always faces Earth. The temperature, or brightness, map shows a huge change in temperature – up to 1,000 degrees – from the hottest point facing the star to the terminator, where day and night sides of the tidally-locked planet meet in permanent twilight.​

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech (K. Miller/IPAC)

The Long View,

The true—and vast—complexity of the universe was captured in this vista recorded by a pair of automated telescopes, one in the U.S. and one in the Chilean desert. From our little perch inside the Milky Way, the image shows the universe stretching out for about a billion light years, which is only a small fraction of its total size. Each of the 50,000 dots represents an entire galaxy. The Earth, once believed to sit at the center of it all, is in truth a cosmic afterthought.

John Huchra, Thomas Jarrett 2MASS collaboration, U.MASS, IPAC

Planet 9!

A new study's "treasure map" suggests that a planet several times more massive than Earth could be hiding in our solar system, camouflaged by the bright strip of stars that make up the Milky Way.

The unseen planet is predicted to exist based on its apparent gravitational influence on a group of small objects with odd, clustered orbits. But so far, searches for it have come up empty, and critics contend that the hints of its presence are just ghosts in the data.

Now, a new analysis predicts that if it’s out there, that skulking planet could be closer, brighter, and easier to spot than previously estimated.

Instead of orbiting our home star once every 18,500 years, astronomers calculate that it loops around the sun in about 7,400 years. That tighter orbit brings it much closer to the sun than previously expected, which means that Planet Nine may appear brighter to Earth-based telescopes.

CALTECH/R. HURT (IPAC)

An artist's representation of Planet Nine, looking back towards the Sun

CALTECH/R. HURT (IPAC)

An artistic rendering of KIC 8462852,

Image: NASA / JPL-Caltech / R. Hurt (IPAC)