NASA's James Webb maps WASP-17b's uneven atmosphere 1,300 light-years away
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope just mapped the weird, uneven atmosphere of WASP-17b, a giant planet 1,300 light-years away.
Scientists from Cornell and Bristol found that, instead of a perfect circle, the planet's atmosphere is stretched out with big differences between its hot evenings and cooler mornings.
It turns out wild winds and heat flows are shaping these distant worlds in ways we didn't expect.
Transmission strings show atmospheric asymmetry
Using a fresh method called "transmission strings," researchers could actually see how WASP-17b's atmosphere expands more on one side than the other.
This breakthrough backs up what scientists have been predicting about extreme weather on exoplanets and helps us get a clearer picture of their climates, way beyond what old-school averaging could show.
The study opens up new ways to understand weather on planets far outside our solar system.