The planet farthest from the Sun, Neptune, is the windiest place in the solar system, with winds blowing at speeds reaching more than 0.3 miles per second (0.5 kilometers per second). That’s a relatively pleasant wind speed compared to a giant, bloated planet about 500 light years from Earth.
The supersonic winds on this exoplanet, designated WASP-127b, travel at a mind-blowing speed of 5.5 miles per second (9 kilometers per second). The speed of sound on Earth is about 0.21 miles per second (0.34 km/s), making these winds supersonic by our Earth standards. The newly discovered alien jet stream is the fastest ever measured on a planet, providing new insight into the extreme weather patterns hitting other worlds.
Using the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile, a team of astronomers measured the extremely powerful winds raging across WASP-127b’s equator. At speeds of up to 20,500 miles per hour (33,000 kilometers per hour), jet winds travel at nearly six times the speed at which the planet rotates, according to a study. study published today in the journal Astronomy and astrophysics.
An animated visual of the exoplanet reveals a gruesome scene as winds strike WASP-127b’s equator with extreme ferocity. “Part of this planet’s atmosphere is moving toward us at high speed while another part is moving away from us at the same speed,” Lisa Nortmann, a scientist at the University of Göttingen, Germany, and author principal of the study. said in a statement. “This signal shows us that there is a very fast supersonic wind around the planet’s equator.”
Astronomers discovered the exoplanet in 2016, a gas giant slightly larger than Jupiter with a fraction of its mass, making it rather bloated. WASP-127b It takes a little more than four days to orbit its star, a yellow dwarf or G-type star, which is generally less massive and cooler than our Sun.
Since its discovery, scientists have been probing the planet to learn more about its weather patterns. The team behind the new study used the VLT to trace the planet’s composition by measuring how light from its host star travels through its upper atmosphere. The results revealed the presence of water vapor and carbon monoxide molecules in the planet’s atmosphere. The speed at which this material moved through the atmosphere, however, revealed a rather strange “double peak,” according to the study, meaning that one side of the atmosphere is moving toward us and the other is moving toward us. is moving away from us at high speed.
Based on their measurements, the researchers concluded that extremely powerful winds dominated the planet’s equator, appearing to hug the gas giant as parts of its atmosphere moved in opposite directions. “This is something we’ve never seen before,” Nortmann said.
As the study also revealed, the planet’s poles are colder than the rest of the planet and the planet experiences slightly different temperatures from morning to evening. “This shows that the planet has complex weather conditions, just like Earth and other planets in our own system,” said Fei Yan, a professor at the University of Science and Technology of China and co-author of the study, in a press release.
Scientists are learning more about planets that orbit stars other than our own, analyzing the atmospheres of other worlds with extreme precision to piece together our own origin story. “Understanding the dynamics of these exoplanets helps us explore mechanisms such as heat redistribution and chemical processes, improving our understanding of planet formation and potentially shedding light on the origins of our own solar system,” David Cont of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany. , and co-author of the article, said in a statement.
With more than 5,000 exoplanets discovered to date, there is still much to learn.