James Webb Space Telescope Confirms Changing Water Clouds on Distant Brown Dwarf WISE 0855

Astronomers, using the James Webb Space Telescope, have for the first time directly confirmed that water clouds on a world beyond our solar system are changing thickness over time, similar to weather on Earth. Observations of WISE 0855, the coldest known brown dwarf located 7.5 light-years away, revealed that its atmosphere is shaped by both high-altitude water clouds that grow thicker and thinner as the object rotates, and deep chemical gases being brought upward by convection. The research is available on the arXiv preprint server and has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.