When scientists study exoplanets, planets orbiting stars other than the Sun, they often lack three-dimensional information. For example, general mathematical relationships are used to estimate a planet’s radius, even though that distance may be different depending on where it is measured.

Similar principles apply to measuring the atmosphere of an exoplanet, which often blurs all the features around the planet into one average spectrum. A spectrum is the record of how starlight filters through the atmosphere.

Dr David Grant, at the University of Bristol, and I have developed a new method called “transmission strings” to map the structure of the atmosphere of these distant alien worlds.

By analysing data from the largest and most powerful telescope in space, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), we have, for the first time, mapped the changing shape of an exoplanet atmosphere. The results, published in Nature Astronomy, revealed a planetary atmosphere that was asymmetric – with one side more extended than the other.

In this new research study, led by Dr Lili Alderson at Cornell University in Ithaca, US, we looked at Wasp-17b, which orbits a star some 1,300 light years from Earth. It falls into a........

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