The Webb telescope has observed a planet so extreme that the clouds are made of rock and the temperature on a cold night is 600 ºC.

The James Webb Space Telescope has surprised astronomers with a weather forecast for a not-too-distant exoplanet: WASP-43b.

Jupiter is stuck to its star. Located 283 light-years from Earth, WASP-43b is a so-called “hot Jupiter,” a planet similar in size to Jupiter that orbits its star at a much closer distance.

WASP-43b is located 2.1 million kilometers from the star WASP-43. The distance is so amazingly short that it completes its orbit in just 19 Earth hours, causing wind gusts of up to 9,000 kilometers per hour. But that’s not its main problem.

Extreme climate. The tight embrace of WASP-43b and its star has resulted in the planet becoming tidally locked, meaning one of its faces always points towards the star.

The side facing the star is cooked at a temperature of 1,250 degrees Celsius, which is enough to melt aluminum. The side with its back to the star lives in eternal night at a temperature that is not much more pleasant: 600 ºC.

Why is it so hot at night? Because of the super-hurricane winds we mentioned earlier, which carry vaporized material, such as molten rock, from the dayside to the nightside, the material cools and condenses into liquid droplets, forming clouds of molten rock that can be seen with the Webb telescope.

The space telescope also allowed the composition of the planet’s atmosphere to be characterized, not only confirming the presence of water vapor, but also the absence of methane. Winds prevent the formation of this gas, which is very common on hot Jupiters.

Strange planets. Webb’s team used the Mid-Infrared Imager (MIRI) to observe changes in light on either side of the inhospitable planet, and then followed them with the Near-Infrared Spectrometer (NIRSpec).

The results demonstrate once again just how truly weird planets outside our solar system can be. Webb also found planets covered in boiling water — planets as light as cotton candy.

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In Hatake | We’ve discovered a water cycle never seen before in the universe. And it’s all thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope.