The next monthly meeting will be on May 8th at 7:30pm.
Meet-up Link: https://www.meetup.com/astronomy-131/events/306831460/
Date: Thursday, May 8th, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Location: Simon Fraser University Burnaby Room AQ3149
Topic: Forecasting Exoplanet Weather with the James Webb Space Telescope
Speaker: Louis-Philippe Coulombe

Bio: Louis-Philippe is a PhD candidate at the Université de Montréal and a member of the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets. His research uses JWST observations to study the composition and dynamics of exoplanet atmospheres.
Abstract: Some exoplanets orbit so close to their host stars that they are scorched by intense heat, leading to extreme weather patterns unlike anything seen in our Solar System. One such planet is LTT 9779 b, an “ultrahot Neptune” that reflects an unusually large amount of starlight, making it one of the most reflective planets ever found around another star. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, we observed the planet throughout its entire orbit, which lasts only 19 hours. Our observations reveal that the planet’s dayside is split into two distinct regions: the western side is covered in bright, reflective clouds, while the eastern side is much darker. This suggests that powerful winds push heat from the dayside towards the cooler nightside, allowing clouds made of minerals to form on one side while the other remains too hot for them to exist. These findings provide a rare glimpse into the exotic weather of distant worlds and help us understand how planetary atmospheres behave under extreme conditions.