Astronomers have discovered an unexpected surprise on the famous “Pink Planet,” a strange world known as GJ504b. Using the powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), scientists found that the object is surrounded by salty clouds and has an atmosphere filled with unusual chemicals. GJ504b was first discovered in 2013. It orbits a sun-like star about […]

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For the first time, astronomers have distinguished between the morning and evening atmospheres of a single planet, revealing two remarkably different environments at its edges. WASP-121 b is a gas giant that orbits extremely close to its star, resulting in one hemisphere exposed to temperatures approaching 2,500 degrees Celsius while the opposite side remains in constant darkness.

A research team from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy used the James Webb Space Telescope to provide observational evidence for a phenomenon that models had previously predicted. The boundary regions between day and night on tidally locked planets can exhibit distinct temperatures and chemical compositions.

The recent findings appeared in a study published in Nature Astronomy.

A World Stuck in Time

WASP-121 b is part of a group of gas giants known as hot Jupiters. These massive planets orbit their stars in just a few days and eventually become locked in place by gravity. Tidal forces keep one side facing the star at all times, while the other side never sees daylight.

“WASP-121 b is particularly extreme,” said co-author Tom Evans-Soma of the University of Newcastle, Australia. “Average temperatures on the dayside hemisphere are around 2,770 Kelvin, while those on the nightside are closer to about 1,000 Kelvin.”

The difference in temperature between the two hemispheres, which is about 1,775 degrees Celsius, makes WASP-121 b one of the most thermally extreme exoplanets known. The regions at the boundary between day and night, called terminators, are where the planet experiences constant morning or evening conditions. Scientists expected these areas to have different atmospheric properties, but only with the precision of JWST could these differences be directly observed.

Mapping the Atmosphere

The researchers used a method based on the planet’s transit across its star to study these differences. As WASP-121 b passes in front of its star, it rotates by about 30 degrees, which means that different parts of its atmosphere can be observed during each transit. By tracking how infrared starlight filters through the atmosphere over time, the team reconstructed how temperature and chemical composition change across different longitudes.

“By measuring how starlight absorption changes as WASP-121 b rotates, we probe its atmosphere longitude by longitude,” said lead author Cyril Gapp of MPIA. The observations not only confirmed what models had predicted, but also showed that the differences between the two terminators are even greater than expected.

Two Different Skies

The evening side of the planet’s terminator absorbs more starlight than the morning side. Powerful eastward winds sweep heat from the scorching dayside toward the nightside, with the evening region getting the first blast of this warmth. This extra heat causes the atmosphere there to puff up, allowing it to absorb even more starlight, as the observations showed.

Chemical measurements backed up these findings. Carbon monoxide absorption increased as the hotter regions of the evening came into view near the end of the transit. Water showed a different pattern. Rather than simply decreasing with higher temperatures, the researchers interpret the result as evidence that water molecules in the upper atmosphere are breaking apart, likely due to the intense heat at the evening terminator. This points to a real chemical change, not just a shift in molecular location.

The Cloud Problem

The morning side shows a different environment. Although models predicted a difference between the two terminators, they did not fully explain why the morning side appears cooler and more opaque. The most likely explanation involves clouds that are unlike those on Earth.

At the morning terminator, air comes in from the cold nightside. Temperatures may be low enough for silicate and mineral compounds to turn into tiny particles, forming clouds that block infrared radiation from below. This makes the atmosphere appear cooler than it really is underneath.

When the team adjusted their models to account for these clouds, the results more closely aligned with their observations. Still, confirming exactly how these clouds form and behave will require more advanced modeling, as cloud formation and evaporation in such extreme environments remain a major puzzle in exoplanet science.

A Method Ready to Scale

WASP-121 b has been the subject of previous studies, but JWST now enables astronomers to examine its atmosphere in detail, section by section. This approach is now also available for use with other exoplanets.

The team has already found other ultra-hot gas giants with the right temperatures and orbits for similar analysis. Using this method on other planets will help astronomers compare atmospheric conditions and deepen our understanding of extreme planetary environments.

Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.

James Webb has revealed that the sunrise and sunset sides of WASP-121 b have surprisingly different atmospheres. Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have discovered striking differences between the morning and evening sides of the atmosphere of WASP-121 b, an ultra-hot gas giant located far beyond our solar system. The findings provide the [...]

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A meteorite discovered in Africa could be evidence of a lost protoplanet that once orbited our Sun, according to researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

In a recent paper published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, the team revealed evidence of an ancient protoplanet that may have been as large as Mars based on simulations of how the meteorite sample may have formed.

The four-and-a-half-billion-year-old world carried an unexpected geological makeup, which the researchers say casts doubt on common assumptions regarding planetary evolution.

Protoplanetary Demise

According to the UC Boulder team, the massive protoplanetary body collided with another object four and a half billion years ago, shattering it completely. This is the first definitive evidence of a lost protoplanet in our solar system, based on analysis of the angrite meteorite NWA 12774, a shard of that planetary embryo recovered from the Sahara Desert.

“It’s incredible to think there was once a world this large,” said lead author Aaron Bell, an assistant research professor in the Department of Earth Science at CU Boulder. “We only know it existed because a few fragments of it happened to land on Earth. These meteorites preserved evidence of a completely different pathway through which early planets developed.”

A Rare Meteorite Sample

Angrites, a rare type of volcanic rock, serve as a record of our solar system’s distant past. These rocks began forming only a few million years after the solar system’s birth, making them valuable evidence of this early era. However, they are extremely rare and difficult to find.

NWA 12774 is one of only 68 angrite samples identified among more than 80,000 meteorites cataloged by scientists. Given its rarity, the discovery could potentially reshape how researchers understand these ancient rocks.

Until now, scientists had assumed that angrites originated from relatively small asteroids less than 124 miles (200 kilometers) wide, based largely on their chemical composition. Large rocky planets such as Earth and Mars contain significant amounts of silicon dioxide, while angrites contain very little of the compound.

Unexpected Meteorite Discovery

Researchers began to reconsider those assumptions when they identified clinopyroxene in the meteorite sample. This mineral, commonly found in Earth’s crust and mantle, appeared unusually rich in aluminum, suggesting that it formed under significant pressure deep within a planetary body.

To investigate this unusual characteristic of NWA 12774, the University of Colorado Boulder team recreated the conditions under which the sample could have formed. Their analysis revealed that pressures of at least 17.5 kilobars were required to produce the aluminum-rich clinopyroxene found in the meteorite. For comparison, one kilobar is roughly equivalent to the pressure at the deepest part of Earth’s oceans, near the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

Rethinking Meteorite Origins

The researchers’ discovery proved that at least this particular angrite sample could not have formed inside a small meteorite, as a body with a radius of at least 621 miles would be required to generate the pressure needed to produce the crystals. 

Additional evidence suggested the parent body may have been even larger. The crystals’ sharp edges and delicate internal structures indicate they likely formed at relatively shallow depths beneath the surface. Reconciling both the high-pressure conditions and the shallow formation depth suggests that the parent body may have ranged in size from the Moon to Mars.

“There are many meteorites sitting in drawers that haven’t been thoroughly studied, so there were likely more of these protoplanets we don’t know about,” Bell said.

Exactly what happened to this ancient world remains uncertain, but researchers believe it was likely destroyed in a massive collision early in the solar system’s history. Fragments of that lost protoplanet may have later contributed material to other bodies, potentially including Earth itself.

“The materials that formed the angrite parent body are fundamentally different from the ingredients of Earth and Mars,” Bell concluded. “It points to a distinct and separate evolutionary path in planetary formation in the early history of our solar system.”

The paper, “High-Pressure Clinopyroxene in Northwest Africa 12774 and New Geobarometric Evidence for a Planetary Embryo-Sized Angrite Parent Body,” appeared in Earth and Planetary Science Letters on July 1, 2026.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

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