WASP-18 b: Viewing an Exoplanet Eclipse with NASA's James Webb Space Telescope

Researchers made a brightness map, tracing the glow from hot regions of WASP-18 b as it slipped behind, and reappeared from, its star. This event is known as a secondary eclipse. Scientists can measure the combined light from star and planet, then measure the light from just the star as the planet moves behind it. The plot is a light curve, the measured brightness of a star. The planet’s brightness map, obtained using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, allowed researchers to determine a temperature map of the planet’s atmosphere. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech (K. Miller/IPAC)