Posted on by Laurence Tognetti

A Tiny Telescope is Revealing “Hot Jupiter” Secrets

CUTE spacecraft and an artist's impression of a hot Jupiter. (Credit: NASA/JPL, University of Colorado)
CUTE spacecraft and an artist's impression of a hot Jupiter. (Credit: NASA/JPL, University of Colorado)

A recent study presented this week at the 2023 meeting of the American Geophysical Union discusses observations of “hot Jupiters” from the NASA-funded CubeSat mission known as the Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment (CUTE). Unlike most exoplanet-hunting telescopes, whose sizes are comparable to a small school bus, CUTE measures 36 centimeters (14 inches) in length, equivalent to the size of a cereal box. These findings come after members of the team, which consists of undergraduate and graduate students, published an overview paper about CUTE in The Astronomical Journal in January 2023 and results from CUTE observing WASP-189b in The Astrophysical Journal Letters in August 2023.

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Posted on by David Dickinson

Tracking Twilight: ‘Purple Sunset Effect’ Seen Worldwide

Has twilight looked at little… purple to you as of late? The ‘purple sunset’ effect is subtle, but currently noticeable on a clear evening. Sunsets are always colorful events, as the Sun’s rays shine through a thicker layer of the atmosphere at an oblique angle, scattering out at longer, redder wavelengths. When the air is clear and relatively dust free, this effect is at a minimum… but when the upper atmosphere becomes saturated with dust particles and aerosols, the sky can erupt in a panoply of colors at twilight.

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