Hellish winds, liquid rock clouds and more discovered on this "hot Jupiter"

In brief: WASP-43b, a massive gas giant exoplanet, makes Venus look like an ice cube. Thanks to some new observations from the powerful James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have constructed the first global temperature map of this oven-like world - and the picture it paints is mind-boggling.

WASP-43b orbits so close to its parent star that the same side of the planet always faces the star's blinding glare: just 1.3 million miles from the star's surface. The dayside hemisphere gets absolutely baked, with temperatures soaring up to a ludicrous 1,250°C (2,282°F). That's hot enough to melt some metals.

Meanwhile, the permanent nightside is a bit "cooler" at a relatively brisk 600°C (1,112°F). The infrared data from Webb's mid-infrared instrument (MIRI) essentially acted like a powerful thermometer measuring the planet's temp from 280 light-years away.

This intense heat disparity ...