Winds on the alien planet reach speeds of 33,000 kilometers per hour

The vast alien planet has fierce winds blowing around its equator at nearly 30 times the speed of sound on Earth.

Lisa Nortman He and his colleagues at the University of Göttingen in Germany used the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile to observe WASP-127b, a gas giant exoplanet more than 500 light-years from Earth. Although slightly larger than Jupiter, it is one of the least dense planets we know of.

The researchers expected the light signal from the planet’s atmosphere to have one distinct peak, but instead they found two distinct peaks.

“It was a little confusing,” Nortman says. “But when we analyzed the data a little more carefully, it became clear that there were two signals. I was very excited – my first thought was that it must be some kind of super-rotating wind. I thought that right away.”

The researchers concluded that the two mountains were caused by rapid winds from the jet stream near the equator, with half of the wind moving toward Earth and the other half moving away from it. The wind appears to be made up of water and carbon monoxide, and appears to be moving at 33,000 kilometers per hour, the fastest wind ever measured on Earth.

“We’re talking about nine kilometers per second. Even Jupiter’s wind speeds are on the order of a few hundred meters per second, so this is actually an order of magnitude bigger.” vivian parmentier at Oxford University.

He says that if you were in this wind, you wouldn’t be able to feel such extreme speeds because it would be moving around you at the same speed. But because the wind moves from the hot side of the Earth, which is always facing the star, to the cold side, which is always in darkness, you will experience a temperature difference of several hundred degrees in a few hours.

Researchers don’t know why WASP-127b has such extreme winds, but Nortman said the planet has certain peculiarities, including a low density and an unstable orbit around its star. It is said that there are certain characteristics that may play a role. “However, no clear connection has been established between those facts and particularly strong winds.”