# Astronomers Built Decades of Exoplanet Models on a Simplified Assumption. JWST Just Found the Gap.

- slug: astronomers-built-decades-of-exoplanet-models-on-a-simplified-assumption-jwst-just-found-the-gap
- date: 2026-04-26
- category: Space & Aerospace

The Astrophysical Journal Letters just confirmed what planetary atmosphere models have been missing for decades: water-ice clouds on a world 12 light-years away. The physics was too hard to calculate, so the field set it aside. Now they have the answer.

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