Incredibly, the fancy gadgets on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope are so sharp they can predict the weather on a distant planet hundreds of light-years away!
This awesome telescope helped a bunch of scientists from all over the world study a planet called WASP-43 b, which is a huge gas giant chilling out in the Sextans constellation.
They found out some pretty cool stuff: one side of the planet is covered in thick clouds, while the other side has clear skies. Plus, there are crazy fast winds near the equator, whipping up to 5,000 miles per hour! And get this, they figured all this out despite the insane distance.
WASP-43 b is like the “hottest Jupiter” out there. It’s super close to its star, just a tiny fraction of the distance between Mercury and the Sun. So, you can imagine, it’s scorching hot—way hotter than any of the gas giants we know in our own solar system.
Scientists had spotted this planet back in 2011 using other telescopes like Hubble and Spitzer. But those telescopes could only give a rough idea about its atmosphere. They needed something super precise like the James Webb Telescope to really map out the planet’s weather.
This new study, led by Taylor Bell from the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute, shows that the dayside of WASP-43 b is a blazing 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit! That’s hot enough to melt iron, which is pretty mind-blowing.
By studying the light coming from the planet, scientists were able to figure out its temperature and even create a rough map of its atmosphere using computer models. It’s like they’re painting a picture of what this distant world might be like, and it’s pretty fascinating stuff!
