The first documented supersonic winds ripped through this exoplanet

The farthest planet from the Sun, Neptune, is the windiest place in the solar system, with winds blowing at speeds that reach more than 0.3 kilometers per second (0.5 kilometers per second). That’s a relatively pleasant wind speed compared to a giant, puffy planet located about 500 light years from Earth.

The supersonic winds on this exoplanet, designated WASP-127b, travel at a mind 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/sec), making these winds supersonic by our terrestrial standards. The recently discovered extraterrestrial jet stream is the fastest ever measured on a planet, providing new insight into the extreme weather that plagues other worlds.

Using the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, a team of astronomers has measured the extremely powerful winds blowing across WASP-127b’s equator. At speeds of up to 20,500 miles per hour (33,000 kilometers per hour), jet winds move at nearly six times the speed at which the planet rotates, according to a to study published today in the newspaper Astronomy and Astrophysics.

An animated visual of the exoplanet reveals a gnarly scene as winds hit 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 lead author of the study he said in a statement. “This signal shows us that there is a very fast supersonic jet 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 puffy. WASP-127b it takes a little over four days to orbit its star, a yellow dwarf, or G-type star, which are typically less massive and cooler than our Sun.

Since its discovery, scientists have been investigating 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 was moving through the atmosphere, however, revealed a rather strange “double peak,” according to the study, which meant that one side of the atmosphere was moving toward us and the other away from us. at high speed.

Based on their measurements, the researchers concluded that extremely powerful winds dominated the planet’s equator, which seemed to squeeze the gas giant while parts of its atmosphere moved in the opposite direction. “This is something we haven’t seen before,” Nortmann said.

As the study also revealed, the poles of the planet are cooler than the rest, and experience slightly different temperatures in its morning and evening sides. “This shows that the planet has complex weather patterns like Earth and other planets in our system,” Fei Yan, a professor at the University of Science and Technology of China, and co-author of the study, said in a statement.

Scientists are learning more about planets orbiting stars other than our own, analyzing the atmospheres of other worlds with extreme precision as a way to piece together our own origin story. “Understanding the dynamics of these exoplanets helps us explain mechanisms such as heat redistribution and chemical processes, improving our understanding of planet formation and potentially shedding light on the origins of our solar system,” David Cont from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany. , and a co-author of the paper, said in a statement.

With over 5,000 exoplanets discovered so far, we still have a lot to learn.