"Never seen before"

33,000 km/h: wind record measured on exoplanet

(Bild: ESO/L. Calçada)

Tornadoes and hurricanes are increasingly causing devastating damage on Earth. Astronomers have now discovered storms of a completely different magnitude on a distant exoplanet. There, supersonic jet streams raging around the equator reach speeds of almost 33,000 km/h.

At the equator of the gas giant WASP-127b, the scientists used the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile to register air currents of nine kilometers per second (which corresponds to almost 33,000 kilometers per hour). These are the fastest such winds ever measured on a planet, the ESO reports on its website.

Jet streams are air currents that circulate at high altitudes in the atmosphere. They also exist on Earth, but according to researchers they reach maximum speeds of around 500 to 700 kilometers per hour. The fastest jet stream in the solar system has been observed on the planet Neptune at around 1800 km/h.

Supersonic jet streams raging around the equator of WASP-127b (image) reach speeds of almost 33,000 km/h.

(Bild: ESO/L. Calçada)

"This is something we have never seen before," emphasized expert Lisa Hartmann from the University of Göttingen, one of the main authors of the study published in the journal "Astronomy & Astrophysics", with regard to the speeds of the jet stream on WASP-127b. This moves almost six times faster than the planet itself rotates on its axis.

Gas giant is slightly larger than Jupiter
According to the researchers, WASP-127b is a gas giant that is slightly larger than the planet Jupiter, but has only a fraction of its mass. Using VLT instruments, the researchers were able to detect water vapor and carbon monoxide molecules in its atmosphere. They were also able to determine the speed at which these molecules move around the planet's equator.

It also revealed slight temperature differences between the morning and evening sides of WASP-127b. Obviously, the exoplanet shows complex weather patterns similar to those on Earth. This is an example of the rapid progress currently being made in research into exoplanets.

So-called exoplanets are planets orbiting distant stars outside the solar system.