{"id":224283,"date":"2025-10-31T01:05:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T06:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/astronomers-create-first-3d-map-of-an-exoplanets-atmosphere"},"modified":"2025-10-31T01:05:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T06:05:07","slug":"astronomers-create-first-3d-map-of-an-exoplanets-atmosphere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/astronomers-create-first-3d-map-of-an-exoplanets-atmosphere","title":{"rendered":"Astronomers Create First 3D Map of an Exoplanet\u2019s Atmosphere"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/astronomers-create-first-3d-map-of-an-exoplanets-atmosphere.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cEclipse mapping allows us to image exoplanets that we can\u2019t see directly, because their host stars are too bright,\u201d said Dr. Ryan Challener.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>What can a 3D map of an exoplanet\u2019s atmosphere teach astronomers about the planet\u2019s formation, evolution, and composition? This is what a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41550-025-02666-9\">recent study<\/a> published in <em>Nature Astronomy<\/em> hopes to address as a team of scientists presented a first-time 3D map of an exoplanet\u2019s atmosphere based on temperature. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the formation and evolution of exoplanet atmospheres while opening the doors for developing better methods of studying them.<\/p>\n<p>For the study, the researchers used data obtained from NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope to develop a new method called 3D eclipse mapping on WASP-18b, which is located just over 400 light-years from Earth and whose radius is slightly more than Jupiter\u2019s while have ten times its mass. WASP-18b is known as an \u201cultra-hot\u201d Jupiter, as it orbits extremely close to its star at 0.02024 astronomical units (AU) while completing one orbit in only 0.9 days. For context, the planet Mercury orbits our Sun at 0.387 AU and completes one orbit in 88 days. WASP-18b is also tidally locked to its star like our Moon is tidally locked to Earth.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, the researchers found that WASP-18b\u2019s \u201cdayside\u201d features variations in temperature and chemical composition while also exhibiting a circular \u201chotspot\u201d where the largest amount of starlight hits the atmosphere. Additionally, the team found this hotspot is surrounded by a colder \u201cring\u201d closer to the limbs of the planet, or the outer edges where the shape of the planet is visible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cEclipse mapping allows us to image exoplanets that we can\u2019t see directly, because their host stars are too bright,\u201d said Dr. Ryan Challener. What can a 3D map of an exoplanet\u2019s atmosphere teach astronomers about the planet\u2019s formation, evolution, and composition? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy hopes to address as [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":706,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,385,1965,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-224283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemistry","category-evolution","category-mapping","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/706"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}