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WASP-121 b's Split Atmosphere, TOI-199b Methane & Dragon ISS Return
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Webb maps a single exoplanet with two chemically distinct atmospheres — dissociating water on one side, silicate clouds on the other. Plus a SpaceX Dragon departs the ISS with 6,500 lb of breakthrough biomedical research.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
The James Webb Space Telescope has mapped something genuinely new: a single planet with two dramatically different atmospheres, separated not by geography, but by the direction you're facing. The planet is WASP-121 b, an ultra-hot gas giant locked in permanent orbit with one face eternally turned toward its star.
The asymmetry goes beyond temperature. On the hotter evening terminator, Webb detected signs that water molecules are being torn apart.
The second major finding pulls in the opposite thermal direction. Webb has characterized the atmosphere of TOI-199b, a Saturn-sized planet sitting at temperatures around seventy-five degrees Celsius.
Closer to home, a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station on June sixteenth, carrying around six thousand five hundred pounds of research cargo back to Earth. The payload includes bioprinted organ tissues grown in microgravity, cryogenic fuel storage data, and materials from experimental cancer treatment research using DNA-inspired structures.
Taken together, today's developments share a common thread. Webb isn't just detecting exoplanet atmospheres anymore.
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