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  NASA's Webb Finds Signs of Possible Aurorae on Isolated Brown Dwarf Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have found a brown dwarf (an object more massive than Jupiter but smaller than a star) with infrared emission from methane, likely due to energy in its upper atmosphere. This is an unexpected discovery because the brown dwarf, W1935, is cold and lacks a host star; therefore, there is no obvious source for the upper atmosphere energy. The team speculates that the methane emission may be due to processes generating aurorae. These findings are being presented at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans. To help explain the mystery of the infrared emission from methane, the team turned to our solar system.  Methane in emission is a common feature in gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn. The upper-atmosphere heating that powers this emission is linked to aurorae. On Earth, aurorae are created when energetic particle...

NASA's Hubble Observes Exoplanet Atmosphere Changing Over 3 Years By combining several years of observations from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope along with conducting computer modelling, astronomers have found evidence for massive cyclones and other dynamic weather activity swirling on a hot, Jupiter-sized planet 880 light-years away. The planet, called WASP-121 b, is not habitable. But this result is an important early step in studying weather patterns on distant worlds, and perhaps eventually finding potentially habitable exoplanet with stable, long-term climates. For the past few decades, detailed telescopic and spacecraft observations of neighboring planets in our solar system show that their turbulent atmospheres are not static but constantly changing, just like weather on Earth. This variability should also apply to planets around other stars, too. But it takes lots of detailed observing and computational modelling to actually measure such changes. To make the discovery, ...