Where Day Meets Night

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with NASA’s Universe of Learning partners: Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Video imagery:

·       Artist’s concept of WASP-39 b: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)

·       Artist’s concept of WASP-39 b terminator zone: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)

·       Webb’s NIRSpec transmission spectrum: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)

·       Artist’s concept of WASP-39 b (repeat image): NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)     

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A grid of pictures from space. Text: News from the Universe. 

 

Focus in on one picture of a purplish celestial object with light on one side reflected from another celestial object. Text: Artist's concept. July 30, 2024. Where day meets night. 

 

WASP-39 b is a gas giant exoplanet that is so tightly held by its star's gravity that one side is turned toward its star in eternal day. while the other side is in eternal night. 

 

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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope recently made a detailed study of the region where day and night meet, called the terminator. 

 

Webb's findings confirm long-held predictions that the terminator's morning and evening regions would have atmospheric differences. A graph shows the relationship of the Amount of Light Blocked by atmosphere to the wavelength of light, with readings from evening being higher amount of light blocked and readings from the morning being lower. 

 

Webb showed the evening region was hotter by about 300 Fahrenheit degrees (200 Celsius degrees). 

 

Webb showed the evening region was hotter by about 300 Fahrenheit degrees (200 Celsius degrees). 

 

The morning region gets wind-delivered gas that has cooled while circulating around the night side, while the evening region receives gas that has been heated on the dayside. 

 

This news was brought to you in part by the SPACE TELESCOPE SCIENCE INSTITUTE IN BALTIMORE, MD