In Earth’s upper atmosphere, a fast-moving band of air called the jet stream blows with winds of more than 442kph, but they are not the strongest in our solar system.
The comparable high-altitude winds on Neptune reach about 2,000kph.
However, those are a mere breeze compared with the jet stream on a planet called WASP-127b.
Photo: AFP / L. Calcada / European Southern Observatory
Astronomers have detected winds howling at about 33,000kph on the large gaseous planet in our Milky Way galaxy approximately 520 light-years from Earth in a tight orbit around a star similar to our sun.
The supersonic jet-stream winds circling WASP-127b at its equator are the fastest of their kind on any known planet.
“There is an extremely fast circumplanetary jet wind found on the planet. The velocity of the winds is surprisingly high,” said astrophysicist Lisa Nortmann of the University of Gottingen in Germany, lead author of the study published on Tuesday in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
More than 5,800 planets beyond our solar system — called exoplanets — have been discovered. WASP-127b is a type called a “hot Jupiter,” a gas giant that orbits very close to its host star. WASP-127b’s diameter is about 30 percent larger than Jupiter, our solar system’s largest planet, but its mass is only about 16 percent that of Jupiter, making it one of the least dense — puffiest — planets ever observed.
“WASP-127b is a gas giant planet, which means that it has no rocky or solid surface beneath its atmospheric layers. Instead, below the observed atmosphere lies gas that becomes denser and more pressurized the deeper one goes into the planet,” said astrophysicist and study coauthor David Cont of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany.
It orbits its star every roughly four days at just about 5 percent of the distance between Earth and the sun, leaving it scorched by stellar radiation.
Like our moon is to Earth, one side of WASP-127b perpetually faces its star — the day side. The other side always faces away — the night side. Its atmosphere is about 1,127°C, with its polar regions less hot than the rest.
The fact that a hot Jupiter’s day side is highly irradiated is believed to be a major driver of atmospheric dynamics.
“Answering the question of what drives these intense winds is challenging, as several factors influence wind patterns in exoplanet atmospheres,” Cont said.
“The primary source of energy for these winds is the intense irradiation from the host star,” he added.
The researchers tracked the speed of molecules in the planet’s atmosphere using an instrument called CRIRES+ on the European Southern Observatory’s Chile-based Very Large Telescope. They made the observations using the “transit” method, observing changes in the host star’s brightness when the planet passes in front of it, from the perspective of a viewer on Earth.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS