This distant planet has wild weather and gemstone clouds
5/29/202610 min
For many astronomers and astrophysicists there are two distinct, important periods: before the James Webb Space Telescope – and after. It has powered many scientific discoveries since it came online, including two at the heart of this episode: insights into one of Neptune’s moons and a “hot Jupiter” exoplanet orbiting another star. This exoplanet has a strange weather system with high winds and cloud coverage only on one side of the planet. Fill in some of the scientific gaps about our solar system and the universe beyond with us.
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First 90 secondsSpeaker 1· Soundbite0:00
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Regina Barber· Host0:23
[shortwave jingle] You're listening to Short Wave from NPR. Hey, Short Wave-ers. Regina Barber here. It's time for my favorite monthly episode, our space news segment, Spacing Out with Gina. We're here today with science correspondent Kadia Riddle. Hey, Kadia.
Kadia Riddle0:41
Hey, Gina.
Regina Barber· Host0:42
I will say, you're gonna have to learn a secret handshake by the end of the day.
Kadia Riddle0:45
I'm ready. I'm r- I'm ready for it.
Regina Barber· Host0:47
And space connoisseur and All Things Considered host, Scott Detrow. Welcome back, Scott.
Scott Detrow· Guest0:52
I like space connoisseur. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to hear what you will teach us this week.
Regina Barber· Host0:57
Yes, I actually did use to teach this stuff for, like, a dozen years. But Kadia, you're actually gonna start us off, though, with a story about the furthest planet in our solar system.
Kadia Riddle1:06
Exactly, which, you know, I grew up learning was Pluto.
Regina Barber· Host1:09
Yeah.
Kadia Riddle1:10
But unfortunately, it's since been kicked out of the major planet guild.
Regina Barber· Host1:14
There's a lot of beef, lot of baggage.
Kadia Riddle1:16
[laughs] Yeah. I'll be telling you about Neptune today and how one of its moons could help us fill in the gaps of our solar system's origin story, but I promise it'll still be fun.
Scott Detrow· Guest1:26
Can I rattle off the, like, slightly dated nemonic, mnemonic