It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Artemis II astronauts reunite with Orion after record-breaking Moon mission
Copyright AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein
Published on
What comes next for NASA’s Artemis missions after a historic lunar fly-around?
Three months after their record-breaking flight around the Moon, the Artemis II astronauts were reunited with their Orion spacecraft at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, United States, on Wednesday.
The last time the four astronauts saw the launch pad, the towering rocket had stood on it.
“It’s a lonely place without that rocket on it,” said Reid Wiseman, the mission’s commander.
Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen spent the day thanking the teams who helped send them into space.
Their mission set a new record for the farthest distance travelled by humans from Earth, reaching 406,771 kilometres during the lunar fly-around.
The crew are now preparing to hand over to the next Artemis team. Last month, NASA announced the Artemis III crew, made up of three US astronauts and Italian European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano.
Set for 2027, Artemis III is expected to remain in Earth orbit, where the crew will practise docking with lunar landers being developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin.
The all-male Artemis III crew has drawn attention because Artemis II’s Christina Koch became the first woman to fly around the Moon.
But Koch said she was not concerned by the selection, saying it would have been worse for someone to overrule NASA’s process simply “to make it look a certain way”.
“I am so glad and so proud that that’s not the situation we have,” she told reporters.
Artemis IV is expected to follow as early as 2028, with NASA planning to land two astronauts on the Moon. The astronauts chosen for that landing have not yet been announced.
Monday, June 22, 2026
Mount Sinai to lead aspen discussions on youth mental health, and healthspan science and practice
The Mount Sinai Hospital / Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Mount Sinai Health System experts will lead discussions on innovative community-based approaches to youth mental health and emerging scientific advances that are transforming how we understand healthy aging and healthspan at the 2026 Aspen Ideas: Health and Aspen Ideas Festival.
The conversations at the festivals, from Monday, June 22, to Wednesday, July 1, in Aspen, Colorado, will explore how collaboration, research, technology, and personalized care can improve health and well-being for people across communities and throughout life.
Mount Sinai is an Official Presenting Sponsor of the Aspen Ideas Festival and Aspen Ideas: Health, and the only underwriter to support both events
“We are excited to return as a health care sponsor to Aspen Ideas: Health and the Aspen Ideas Festival. Mount Sinai’s thought leaders will engage in timely conversations on some of the most important issues shaping the future of health and medicine,” said Brendan G. Carr, MD, MA, MS, Chief Executive Officer, Mount Sinai. “This year’s discussions will explore innovative approaches to healthy aging, longevity, mental health, personalized care, healthcare costs, the use of psychedelics in healthcare, artificial intelligence, and the future of medical education. Aspen provides a unique forum for bringing together leaders, innovators, and changemakers, and we look forward to contributing ideas that can help advance health and improve quality of life for people around the world. We invite attendees to join these conversations and explore the breakthroughs and solutions that will define the future of care.”
Featuring discussions on festival themes that include artificial intelligence, digital health, neuroscience, mental health, longevity, and other emerging areas of medicine, Mount Sinai’s programming highlights how scientific discovery, collaboration, and innovation are helping advance health and improve lives. Event time and location details are subject to change; visit www.mountsinai.org/aspen for the most up-to-date details.
Kicking off Mount Sinai’s events during this year’s festival, Dr. Carr will moderate a panel with Russell Wilson and Sandra Brunson and key Mount Sinai physicians on how creative expression, sports, and community engagement can strengthen youth mental health, build resilience, and improve well-being. The panel will take place on Monday, June 22, from 3:30 pm to 4:30 pm MDT in the East Lawn Tent. Panelists will include leaders from medicine, community-based programs, and professional sports. The conversation will explore how sports, play, and creative arts can serve as powerful, evidence-based interventions to build psychological safety, foster trust, reduce stress, and strengthen resilience. Panelists will also discuss how Mount Sinai and its partners are scaling culturally relevant, community-driven models—from locker rooms to clinics—that meet young people where they are. Panelists include:
Sandra Brunson, Co-Founder and CFO of the Second Round Foundation, Inc.
Sidney Hankerson, MD, MBA, Associate Professor and Vice Chair for Community Engagement in the Department of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Russell Wilson, philanthropist, Super Bowl champion, and Founder of the Why Not You Foundation
Sarah Wood, MD, Division Chief of Adolescent Medicine, Director of the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center, and Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Mount Sinai will also host a panel discussion on how advances in genomics, imaging, cardiovascular science, neurology, and data-driven health monitoring are helping translate scientific discovery into healthier aging and longer healthspan. This session will also be moderated by Dr. Carr, who will be joined by Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai participants Fanny Elahi, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Neurology, Neuroscience, and Pathology, Molecular and Cell-Based Medicine; Eimear E. Kenny, PhD, Professor of Medicine (General Internal Medicine), and Genetics and Genomic Sciences, and Founding Director of the Institute for Genomic Health; Anuradha (Anu) Lala-Trindade (Lala), MD, Associate Professor of Medicine (Cardiology), and Population Health Science and Policy, and Director of Heart Failure Research; and Zahi A. Fayad, PhD, Founding Director of the BioMedical Engineering and Imaging Institute, Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Radiology, and Professor of Diagnostic, Molecular and Interventional Radiology, and Medicine (Cardiology). Panelists will examine how these innovations can bridge discovery and delivery by powering smarter clinical trials, enabling more continuous and personalized care models, and accelerating interventions designed not only to extend lifespan, but also to add years of strength, clarity, and independence. This program will take place on Monday, June 29, from 11 am to 11:50 am MDT in the Koch Building, Booz Allen Hamilton Room.
Other activities in which Mount Sinai Health System experts are participating include:
Brendan G. Carr, MD, MA, MS, will participate on a panel titled “Reducing Health Care Costs” on Thursday, June 25, 9 am to 9:50 am MDT in the Doerr-Hosier Center, McNulty Room.
Kenneth L. Davis, MD, Executive Vice Chairman of the Mount Sinai Boards of Trustees, who served as Mount Sinai’s Chief Executive Officer for 20 years until 2024, will participate on a panel titled “Reimagining Medical Education” on Tuesday, June 23, 1:40 pm to 2:30 pm MDT in the Doerr-Hosier Center, McNulty Room
Fanny Elahi, MD, PhD, will participate on a panel titled “Life, Optimized: What We Gain (and Lose) When AI Takes Over” on Friday, June 26, 11 am to 11:50 am MDT in the Koch Building, Lauder Room.
Rachel Yehuda, PhD, Chemers Neurstein Family Professor of Trauma and Resilience and Director of The Parsons Research Center for Psychedelic Healing at Mount Sinai, will participate on a panel titled “Are We Ready for Psychedelics?” on Wednesday, June 24, 9 am to 9:50 am MDT in the Greenwald Pavilion.
Mount Sinai clinicians will be onsite to provide complimentary dermatologic screenings, body scans, grip strength assessments, and bio-age retinal scans at the Mount Sinai Healthspan Experience, located in The Grove at Aspen Meadows. Screenings will be available from June 22 through July 1. Sessions can be reserved in advance starting on Tuesday, June 16, by calling 929-829-2881 or sending an email to aspen@mountsinai.org. For more information about Mount Sinai’s speakers, events, and activities at the Aspen Ideas: Health and Aspen Ideas Festival, visit www.mountsinai.org/aspen.
Media interested in speaking with any of the panelists before, during, or after Aspen Ideas may submit requests to: newsmedia@mssm.edu
About the Mount Sinai Health System Mount Sinai Health System is one of the largest academic medical systems in the New York metro area, with 48,000 employees working across seven hospitals, more than 400 outpatient practices, more than 600 research and clinical labs, a school of nursing, and leading schools of medicine and graduate education. Mount Sinai advances health for all people, everywhere, by taking on the most complex health care challenges of our time—discovering and applying new scientific learning and knowledge; developing safer, more effective treatments; educating the next generation of medical leaders and innovators; and supporting local communities by delivering high-quality care to all who need it.
Through the integration of its hospitals, labs, and schools, Mount Sinai offers comprehensive health care from conception through geriatrics, leveraging innovative approaches such as artificial intelligence and informatics while keeping patients’ medical and emotional needs at the center of all treatment. The Health System includes 9,000 primary and specialty care physicians and 10 free-standing joint-venture centers throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida.
The Mount Sinai Hospital is ranked the No. 1 hospital in New York on Newsweek’s “World’s Best Hospitals” list and recognized by Newsweek as the No. 1 Best Smart Hospital in New York. Hospitals within the System are consistently ranked by Newsweek’s® “The World’s Best Smart Hospitals,” “Best in State Hospitals,” “World’s Best Hospitals,” and “Best Specialty Hospitals” and by U.S. News & World Report's® “Best Hospitals” and “Best Children’s Hospitals.” The Mount Sinai Hospital is on the U.S. News & World Report® “Best Hospitals” Honor Roll for 2025-2026.
Which major life events matter to young people? A recent study by the University of Zurich (UZH) shows that adolescents and young adults primarily cite positive, everyday developmental steps as formative events, for example school and apprenticeships, friendships, first relationships, travel and moving out of their parents’ home. UZH researchers evaluated open-ended written responses from 1,442 participants in a long-term study. Each participant was surveyed at the ages of 15, 17, 20 and 24.
Eight out of ten events mentioned are positive
The results paint a different picture than many classic studies on life events, which tend to focus on stressful experiences. Overall, 83% of the events mentioned were positive. The participants talked about school, training and apprenticeships particularly often, with these topics accounting for almost half of all mentions. Friendships and romantic relationships came in second place, at around 12%. Personal development and mental well-being accounted for about 8%, while travel and stays abroad stood at approximately 7%.
“Our results show that youth is not primarily composed of crises. Many young people primarily mention positive developmental steps such as education, relationships and personal achievements,” says David Bürgin, clinical developmental psychologist and first author of the study. Lilly Shanahan, co-leader of the study, adds: “Support services should therefore not only focus on how to cope with stress. Stable relationships, positive experiences and opportunities to experience self-efficacy are just as important.”
Nevertheless, the researchers found that psychological stress was still part of the equation. Adolescents and young adults with more severe symptoms of anxiety and depression mentioned stressful relationship experiences, conflicts, loss and personal failures significantly more often. Correspondingly, they referred to positive events such as travel, educational achievements and sports activities less frequently.
Changing priorities
The study also revealed that clear changes occur between adolescence and early adulthood. While school, friendships and leisure time were paramount in middle adolescence, education, work, relationships and independence grew in significance later on. Topics such as sport and going out were mentioned less frequently as the participants became older, while work, housing and having children became more important over time. The researchers also found differences based on gender, social background and experiences of migration. However, broadly speaking, the most important topics were very similar across social groups.
Modern language processing reveals patterns
The research team used automated language processing methods to evaluate thousands of open-ended written responses according to topic. “Our analyses show how freely formulated responses from large longitudinal studies can be processed in such a way that they provide a structured picture of young people’s experiences. This allows their perspectives remain visible in their own words,” says first author Christina Haag, who is now at the University of Cambridge. The study is one of the first large-scale, long-term studies in the world to use such methods to analyze open-ended responses from young people.
References
David Bürgin, Christina Haag, Lynn Alison Büeler, Laura Bechtiger, Clarissa Janousch, Elena Feldmann, Denis Ribeaud, Manuel Eisner, Viktor von Wyl, Lilly Shanahan. Personally meaningful life events from adolescence to young adulthood: A longitudinal natural language processing analysis. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 22 June 2026. DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.70169
The study is a collaboration between the Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development and the Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Prevention Institute at the University of Zurich. The project was supported by the UZH Population Research Center as part of its Seed Grants Program.
Contact
Prof. Dr. Lilly Shanahan Department of Psychology / Clinical Developmental Psychology Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development University of Zurich +41 44 634 06 09
Personally meaningful life events from adolescence to young adulthood: A longitudinal natural language processing analysis.
Article Publication Date
22-Jun-2026
Sunday, June 14, 2026
Astronaut Victor Glover is still trying to find the spiritual words to describe his Moon mission
(RNS) — 'At the end of it, when we were just responding totally instinctually, we talked a lot about God,' Glover told RNS in a recent interview, referring to the Artemis II crew.
(RNS) — On a humid evening in late March, Victor Glover huddled with his fellow Artemis II astronauts to have what the spacefarers called their “ultimate dinner.” It was their last full meal before embarking on their historic journey around the Moon — the first human-crewed visit to Earth’s silver satellite since 1972.
After Glover finished his spread of lamb chops, spinach and sweet potatoes, the cook returned with something else: Communion elements. The cook, a Christian himself, then sat next to Glover and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen as the men paused to pray before observing the Christian sacrament together.
“I prayed and I pleaded that God accepts that I do this for the mission,” Glover, who worships with Churches of Christ congregations in Texas, told Religion News Service in a recent video interview.
It was a quiet moment of religious ritual shortly before a rocket launch so explosively loud that, even a mile away, the boom rivaled the sound of standing near a screaming jet engine. The Space Launch System that carried the Orion spacecraft then catapulted Glover, the pilot for the mission, and his fellow Artemis II crew members into space, where they soared around the Moon and back in a gaping 252,756 mile arc that took them farther away from the Earth than any human beings in history.
But as millions back home marveled at the nine-day mission’s breathtaking photographs and technical accomplishments, Glover said the journey was also steeped in spiritual significance, from blastoff to splashdown.
The Artemis II crew captured this view of an Earthset on April 6, 2026, as they flew around the Moon. (Photo courtesy of NASA) TOP PHOTO: NASA astronaut and Artemis II Pilot Victor Glover peers out the window of the Orion spacecraft during the Artemis II lunar flyby on April 6, 2026. (Photo courtesy of NASA)
“At the end of it, when we were just responding totally instinctually, we talked a lot about God,” he said, referring to the crew. “We talked a lot about creation and the beauty of the universe and the cosmos.”
Glover, 50, said just talking about the mission — even among the Artemis II crew members in their brief reunions between press junkets — has been a challenge. Multiple times in his interview with RNS, Glover admitted to struggling to articulate his thoughts on aspects of the flight, which included witnessing a spectacular solar eclipse rarely seen from space that spurred mission commander Reid Wiseman to quip to Glover, “I don’t think humanity has evolved to the point of being able to comprehend what we are looking at right now.”
“At the end of it, when we were just responding totally instinctually, we talked a lot about God ... We talked a lot about creation and the beauty of the universe and the cosmos.”Victor Glover
While he feels his faith has “definitely grown” through the journey, Glover said the inability to find the right words is something he has come to embrace as a kind of spiritual posture.
“I don’t have to be quick to put words on it and label the moments in the mission,” he said, later adding: “I’m actually getting comfortable not having to answer things. You have questions? Let’s talk about the question.”
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A faith that dwells among the stars
The clear impact of the mission on Glover is striking given his already ample experience as an astronaut. In 2020, he was among the first astronauts to fly aboard the Dragon Capsule, a commercial spacecraft created by Space X, to the International Space Station, where he and three other astronauts lived, suspended above the Earth, for 167 days. In an interview with the Christian Chronicle before the mission, he said he planned to bring Communion cups aboard the ISS, hoping to continue worshipping virtually with his faith community.
“If God could create the universe, God could create a thing to evolve,” Glover said, noting he once challenged a preacher’s claim that the Earth was 3,000 to 7,000 years old.
“I’m actually getting comfortable not having to answer things. You have questions? Let's talk about the question.”Victor Glover
And when the remake of the television series Cosmos aired in 2014, Glover said he had his four daughters lie down on their living room floor, close their eyes and listen as each read from the show’s description of the beginning of the universe. He asked them to build a picture in their mind of what they heard, which included descriptions of the Big Bang.
Glover encouraged his daughters to think about how someone who lived “2,000 years ago, 3,000 years ago” would describe the birth of the universe, and they noted how it echoed the Bible’s description of creation in Genesis.
“I saw my kids’ eyes light up,” Glover said. He added: “I work in science. I work in church. I don’t see them as conflicting.”
A close-up view from the Orion spacecraft during the Artemis II crew’s lunar flyby on April 6, 2026, captures a total solar eclipse, with only part of the Moon visible in the frame as it fully obscures the Sun. Venus is a bright spot on the left of the frame. (Photo courtesy of NASA) Articulating a ‘gentle faith’
NASA also sought religious perspectives while prepping for the Artemis II mission. In a recent interview Wiseman conducted with The New Yorker, the mission commander said the agency hired “spiritual and cultural leaders” to come speak to the team “about the significance of the Moon around the world.”
NASA astronaut Victor Glover conducts leak checks on his spacesuit in the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Florida. (Photo courtesy of NASA/Kim Shiflett)
“We wanted to know how everyone sees the Moon,” Wiseman said.
During the mission itself, which coincided with the Christian Easter holiday and the Jewish celebration of Passover, Glover made reference to the Bible and his faith in his public statements at least twice: once during a televised interview with CBS as they hurtled away from Earth, and a second time during a broadcast just before the crew vanished behind the Moon and entered a 40-minute period of radio silence.
“As we continue to unlock the mysteries of the cosmos, I would like to remind you of one of the most important mysteries there on Earth — and that’s love,” Glover said, referencing the Gospel of Matthew during the broadcast. “Christ said, in response to what was the greatest command, that it was to love God with all that you are. And he also, being a great teacher, said this: ‘I give you equal to it, and that is to love your neighbor as yourself.’”
He added: “And so, as we prepare to go out of radio communication, we’re still able to feel your love from Earth and to all of you down there on Earth, and around the Earth, we love you from the Moon.”
It’s a kind of public-facing religious rhetoric that has proven controversial in the past. After Apollo 8 astronauts read from the book of Genesis while circling the Moon in 1968, an atheist activist filed a lawsuit. The legal challenge was thrown out, but it left NASA skittish about religious rhetoric taking center stage during missions.
But public reception of Glover’s remarks seemed generally positive, with many lauding what one commentator called the astronaut’s “gentle faith.”
“I work in science. I work in church. I don't see them as conflicting.”Victor Glover
“I tried to speak something that was true for me personally, but also true universally, no matter what you follow, whatever faith — or lack of faith — you have,” Glover said, musing that the warm reception may have been because “people’s hearts needed something,” at a time when “there’s a lot of negativity flying around.”
“You can understand how important it is to love something bigger than yourself, and how you should love your neighbor. If we could figure that out, all of us would be better today,” he said. A religious return
According to Glover, his crewmates were frequently at a loss for words as they gazed back at an Earth that grew ever smaller throughout their journey. He often heard them exclaiming reverently to each other, “Oh my God.”
“We Christians are often, too often, quick to say, ‘do not use the Lord’s name in vain,’” he said. “I will tell you, I never felt it was in vain: I thought that is the appropriate utterance for this moment. It’s truly a God moment.”
NASA Artemis II astronauts Victor Glover, center left, and NASA astronaut Christina Koch, center right, are sit on a Navy MH-60 Seahawk on the flight deck of USS John P. Murtha after they were extracted from their Orion spacecraft after splashdown, Friday, April 10, 2026, in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. (Photo courtesy of NASA/Bill Ingalls)
Glover stopped short of suggesting his fellow astronauts were using the same spiritual lens he does. Neither Hansen nor Christina Koch, both mission specialists, appear to have publicly discussed their faith — if they claim one — before or after the mission, and Captain Wiseman has described himself as “not really a religious person.”
Even so, one of the first calls Wiseman made after splashing down in the Pacific Ocean on April 11 was to a chaplain. In a recent public appearance, Wiseman said that as the crew waited together in a medical bay, he felt the astronauts had “no other avenue” to “explain” what they saw during their time in space.
The Navy chaplain on duty that day was Lt. Eliseo Morales Jr., who is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA). In an email to RNS, Morales said that around the same time, an officer called him and said, “Chaps, your presence is requested at medical.”
When Morales entered the room, Wiseman embraced him. The mission commander, who has discussed the encounter publicly and gave Glover permission to mention it, then broke down into tears.
“I’ve told (Wiseman) this since: That was one of the most spiritual moments of my life,” Glover said.
Morales said that he, too, left the experience moved, saying it felt “like a dream.”
“Praying for and meeting actual astronauts who we just recovered from a capsule in the middle of the ocean is a sentence I never thought I would write in my entire life,” he said in the email. “Yet God placed me on this ship for that reason.”
The impulse to call a chaplain speaks to the power religion can have in tense moments, said Glover, including when it comes to articulating the seemingly intangible.
“(Wiseman’s) brain and emotion and development and maturity thought to bring a person in who could understand,” Glover said. “When you think about it, that’s what church is supposed to be anyway: When people have need, you want them to reach for that.”
Morales felt similarly. He noted that, while his meeting with Wiseman and the other astronauts was a “once-in-a-lifetime moment,” it was “no more sacred than the time I was speaking to a young Sailor in my office … who was going through overwhelming challenges in his life.”
The Artemis II crew, from left, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen, Pilot Victor Glover, and Commander Reid Wiseman pause for a group photo inside the Orion spacecraft on their return to Earth, on April 7, 2026. (Photo courtesy of NASA)
Wiseman, in his New Yorker interview, said he and Glover discussed the divine while carving out a few hours together in the Montreal airport during a media tour in April.
“I told him, ‘I think we slipped through the hands of God during that mission,’” Wiseman said, referring to Glover. “That just stopped him in his tracks. He completely agreed. There’s just ways that we see the world right now that are totally different.”
And while a trip to the Moon and back may have left him spiritually reeling, Glover gave no indication that it fractured his faith itself. He said he initially wanted to return to church a day after coming home, and although his family shot down appearing in person, they worshipped virtually together that Sunday.
And while the Communion he shared at his “ultimate meal” was certainly uniquely timed, it was hardly his last.
“I got right back to it when I got back to Earth,” he said.
Earth is illuminated against the blackness of space in this photo taken by an Artemis II crew member through an Orion spacecraft window. (Photo courtesy of NASA)
(L/R) NASA astronaut commander Randy Bresnik, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut pilot Luca Parmitano, NASA astronaut mission specialist Frank Rubio, and NASA astronaut mission specialist Andre Douglas, the Artemis 3 crew – Copyright AFP SAUL LOEB
NASA’s administrator Jared Isaacman on Wednesday defended the makeup of the space agency’s latest Artemis crew, an all-male group.
The nominations have earned criticism that NASA may have acted in accordance with President Donald Trump’s direction to eliminate diversity and inclusion efforts.
Isaacman insisted in a lengthy social media post that the “crew selection does not involve any political appointees.”
“The Astronaut Office assigns the crew that gives the mission the best chance of meeting its objectives, taking into account many factors, including the background and expertise of the astronauts, such as test pilot experience, development work on specific programs, and availability.”
The third phase of Artemis will involve testing the Orion spacecraft and conducting rendezvous and docking tests with lunar landers. It will not include a Moon voyage.
NASA had previously committed to put both a woman and a person of color on the lunar surface.
Last year, however, NASA removed language regarding that commitment and diversity more broadly from some of its web pages, as Trump directed federal agencies to eliminate Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs and references.
That doesn’t necessarily mean NASA’s pledge has been scrapped, but it’s no longer explicit.
Isaacman said “those raising this concern may not be aware of the pipeline of crews,” including those “undergoing lunar-specific training that would be a better fit for a future surface mission.”
“We have an extraordinary astronaut corps, and every mission and every crew is part of a larger campaign to get America back to the Moon and to build the future we all dreamed about as children.”
The third Artemis crew includes NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik, who will serve as commander, and mission specialists Andre Douglas and Frank Rubio.
Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano will represent the European Space Agency as the voyage’s pilot, becoming the first European to join one of the program’s missions.
The crew of the Artemis 2 journey conducted this past spring was named prior to Trump’s return to the White House.
It included the first Black man, Victor Glover, and the first woman, Christina Koch, to fly around the Moon.
Jeremy Hansen became the first Canadian to carry out such a mission, while Reid Wiseman was the commander.
Astronomers have revealed distinct differences in atmospheric conditions between the morning and evening transition zones of the ultra-hot gas planet WASP-121 b, which separate day from night, commonly called terminators. This achievement was only possible due to the unmatched sensitivity of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Led by Cyril Gapp, a PhD student at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) in Heidelberg, Germany, a team of researchers detected this phenomenon, which had previously been predicted by theoretical computations.
Confirmation of variations between dusk and dawn
The discovery corresponds to an asymmetry in the absorption of infrared light received from the host star, which is partially filtered through the planet’s atmosphere during its transit. The researchers interpret this as the result of non-uniform temperatures and chemical compositions in the exoplanet’s atmosphere.
“With its unprecedented observational quality, JWST gives us the most detailed glimpses into distant planets to date: By measuring how star light absorption changes as WASP-121 b rotates, we probe its atmosphere longitude by longitude,” said Cyril Gapp, MPIA.
The data indicate that the evening terminator absorbs more light than the morning side, consistent with the commonly accepted picture of powerful winds that transport intense heat from the day to the night side. Hot winds follow the planet’s rotation eastward, which heats the evening zone. With rising temperatures, this region is bound to expand, increasing the planet’s cross-section and allowing it to absorb stellar radiation more efficiently.
Besides a general slight reduction in brightness towards the end of the transit, the data obtained by JWST’s NIRSpec (Near-infrared spectrograph) instrument also reveal an increase in the carbon monoxide (CO) signal. However, this appears to be a temperature effect, not related to an increase in carbon monoxide molecules.
In contrast, the amount of water (H2O) in the atmosphere appears to drop, which the astronomers interpret as a real decrease in water molecules. The temperatures in the upper atmosphere are high enough to break water molecules into their constituents. This result again corroborates the existence of hot winds heating the evening terminator region.
Two extreme sides of an ultra-hot planet
To detect these minute variations, the astronomers exploited a peculiar behaviour of hot gas planets. The proximity to their host stars slowly synchronizes their spin and orbital motion via tidal forces, such that eventually one rotation takes as long as one revolution. Finally, these planets exhibit two distinct hemispheres: a hot side constantly facing the star and an opposite, darker and cooler side.
“WASP-121b is particularly extreme, with average temperatures on the dayside hemisphere being around 2770 Kelvin, while those on the nightside are closer to about 1000 Kelvin,” co-author Tom Evans-Soma from the University of Newcastle, Australia, explains. He previously determined the planet’s temperature range and is also affiliated with MPIA. These values translate to almost 2500 degrees Celsius, or about 4525 degrees Fahrenheit, on the dayside, and approximately 725 degrees Celsius, or 1340 degrees Fahrenheit, at night.
When astronomers observe such a planet transiting in front of a star, the planet rotates slightly between the points of ingress and egress, revealing different fractions of its atmosphere. While the planet mostly presents its night side, our point of view permits glimpses beyond the dusk and dawn towards the bright dayside, depending on the transit’s progress. The zone leading the planet’s orbit corresponds to the morning side, and the one trailing is the evening side.
Apart from recording the measured brightness variation over time, spectrographs break light into smaller components, which physicists call a spectrum, much as a prism produces a rainbow-like distribution of colours. Since atmospheric gases absorb light at distinct colours or wavelengths, a detailed analysis reveals their chemical composition.
Elapsed time converts to longitude
Hence, the variation along the direction of rotation translates into a time-dependent change of the filtered signal. In the case of WASP-121 b, the rotation angle during a full transit amounts to about 30 degrees, which is sufficient to probe the morning (dawn) and evening (dusk) terminators with high precision in longitude.
Astronomers usually average the measurements over the entire transit to achieve a clearer signal. However, to determine how the signal changes during the planet’s trajectory across the star, Gapp and his colleagues allowed for a temporal variation while the planet rotates. By applying statistical methods, they found that their procedure provides a significantly better fit to the data, indicating that they indeed detected a significant variation.
Notable gaps in atmospheric models
To verify the measured temperatures that would cause local expansion, the astronomers ran models simulating heat distribution in the upper layers of a gas planet, depending on the planet’s properties and the constellation of the planet and its host star. While these atmospheric models confirmed the asymmetric effect caused by spatial temperature variations, the data revealed a larger signal amplitude than the models predicted.
The astronomers suspected that cooling mechanisms at the morning terminator might be at work that the models didn’t account for. Previous studies have indicated that clouds may be present, albeit composed not of water droplets but of minerals such as silicates. Clouds can efficiently shield infrared light emitted from hot gaseous layers below, mimicking lower temperatures. Infamously, simulating the physics of clouds, condensation, and evaporation in a dynamic environment is hard. Therefore, physical models commonly applied to exoplanet atmospheres, such as the one used in this study, do not account for clouds, which can yield unrealistic results.
After tweaking the simulation to approximate the effect clouds have on infrared radiation from deeper layers, the results were more consistent with observations. However, only more sophisticated models will be able to confidently confirm the presence of clouds.
A blueprint for future studies
Model updates will also improve future investigations using this method. The astronomers have already identified additional suitable targets within the required temperature range and rotation speed to successfully probe the terminator regions. This will help them establish a sample of ultrahot gas planets, revealing their longitudinal structure, and potentially discover similarities and differences among these extreme worlds.
