Hosted by a red dwarf around seventy light years from Earth nestled in the southern constellation of 
Equuleaus Pictoris (the painter’s easel, the majority of asterims of the hemisphere named after instruments representing the Age of Enlightenment and exploration), astronomers, building on earlier observations by Hubble, are studying the outermost exoplanet, TOI-270 ฮด, of the star system with the keener eyes of the James Webb Space Telescope and are coming to the conclusion that this temperate Neptune may be a water planet—above a portmanteau of hydrogen plus ocean. Though probably much hotter than conditions we are accustomed to, the pressure of the dense atmosphere (which the JWST can effectively lens through starlight and submit to spectral-analysis) and the fact it is tidally-locked with one side forever simmering and the other cast in an unending night reveals a chemical mix of water vapour and methane, suggesting a steamy global seascape.
synchronoptica
one year ago: Evil Empire (1983)
two years ago: assorted links to revisit
three years ago: more links to enjoy plus a World War I flying ace
four years ago: Mars’ Peacock Mountain
five years ago: Frauentag, writer and illustrator Dick Bruna, a namer of clouds plus a Simpsons’ episode pulled from rotation
