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Webb Space Telescope captures dust storm on remote planet

Using data from the James Webb Space Telescope, NASA said researchers have spotted silicate cloud features in the swirling atmosphere of a planet 40 light-years away from Earth.

Researchers working with data from the James Webb Space Telescope have spotted silicate cloud features in a distant planet's atmosphere. 

NASA said that the atmosphere of the "Tatooine-like world," known as VHS 1256 b, is constantly rising, mixing and moving during its 22-hour day.

As the atmosphere constantly brings hotter material up – with high temperatures reaching 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit – and pushes colder material down, the result is dramatic brightness changes.

"The resulting brightness changes are so dramatic that it is the most variable planetary-mass object known to date," NASA said in a release. 

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The larger silicate dust grains in the atmosphere may be like very hot, small sand particles. 

Furthermore, the scientists also identified the largest number of molecules all at once on a planet outside our solar system, making detections of water, methane and carbon monoxide. 

VHS 1256 b is about 40 light-years away from Earth and orbits two stars over a 10,000-year period. 

The exoplanet's turbulent skies are due to a couple of factors. 

It has low gravity compared to more massive brown dwarfs, meaning that silicate clouds can appear and remain higher in the atmosphere. Plus, in astronomical terms, it's a young planet; only 150 million years have passed since it formed.

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Although all the features the team observed have been spotted on other planets elsewhere in the Milky Way by other telescopes, other research teams typically identified only one at a time. 

"No other telescope has identified so many features at once for a single target," research co-author Andrew Skemer of the University of California, Santa Cruz, said in a statement. "We’re seeing a lot of molecules in a single spectrum from Webb that detail the planet’s dynamic cloud and weather systems."

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The researchers reached these conclusions by analyzing data from Webb's NIRSpec and MIRI instruments, with observations as part of Webb's Early Release Science program. 

Their findings were published in a paper in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

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