Astronomers have discovered supersonic winds on a giant sparkling planet located more than 500 light years from Earth.
In a study published Tuesday in astronomy and astrophysics astronomers that have been studying weather on the planet since 2016, the results have shown that “is the fastest wind ever measured in a jetstream that bypass a planet”.
“This is something that we have never seen before,” said Lisa Nortmann, scientist at the University of Göttingen, Germany, and the main author of the study.
The team said they had mapped the weather on the Planet Wasp-127B using the CRIERS + INSTRUMENT – which consists of both a spectrograph and an adaptive optical system – on the Very large telescope of the southern European observatory.
The results showed that Wasp-127b, which is slightly larger than Jupiter but has only a fraction of his mass, had winds of reaction moved almost six times the speed at which the planet was running. In comparison, the fastest wind ever measured in the solar system was found on Neptune, moving at only 0.5 km per second, said scientists.
South European Observatory
The team has mapped a surprisingly complex meteorological system on the planet following the speed of the molecules – they observed a double peak, indicating that a side of the atmosphere moves towards us and the other far from us at high speed . This indicates that there is a powerful current of wind which bypasses the planet.
The researchers concluded that powerful Jetstream winds around Ecuador would explain this unexpected result and shows that the planet has complex meteorological systems such as earth and other planets in our solar system.
“Understanding the dynamics of these exoplanets helps us to explore mechanisms such as the redistribution of heat and chemical processes, improving our understanding of the formation of the planet and potentially highlighting the origins of our own solar system” , explains David, following the University of Ludwig Maximilien in Munich, Germany, and co-author of the newspaper.
Discovered exoplanets So far, only a few dozen have been directly imaginedaccording to Nasa. Scientists hope that new research reveals whether young planets have trained in their current location or have migrated elsewhere – and how they could interact with each other.