Forget the wind speed recorded on Neptune! The European Southern Hemisphere Observatory (ESO) announced on Tuesday (21.01.2025) that it estimated at 30,000 kilometres an hour wind bursts on WASP-127b. This exoplanet “gas giant” and… holder of the new record, was discovered in 2016, is more than 500 light years from Earth and is a little larger than Jupiter. It also has a much smaller mass, which makes him look “inflated”, according to astronomers. CORVERSE Astronomers noted him in detail with the VLT telescope in the Chilean desert. Focusing on his atmosphere, they confirmed the presence of water vapors and carbon monoxide molecules, using the CRIRES spectrograph. However, it was felt mainly that the wind bursts that, according to expert calculations, exceeded 9 kilometres per second, reaching up to 33,000 km/h, as the study published in Astronomy & Astrophysics inspection reports. The previous record involved wind gusts of 1,800 km/h on Neptune, the eighth – in order of distance from the Sun – planet of our solar system. CORVERSE Researchers also discovered that WASP-127b poles are cooler than the rest of the planet, while they noticed a slight temperature difference between day and night. Fay Jan, one of the authors of the study and professor of the University of Science and Technology, China, explains that the outer planet WASP-127b has “complex climate conditions, just like Earth and other planets in our solar system”. Unplaneta alienígena soporta vientos que soplan a ‘33,000 kilómetros por hora! Las observaciones de WASP-127b, un exoplaneta gaseoso gigante a más de 500 años luz de la Tierra, sugieren que es azotado por vientos supersónicos extremos. — Enrique Copperías (@CienciaDelCope) David Cod of the University of Munich, also among the authors of the study, underlines that understanding the dynamics of such exoplanets could shed light on the mysteries of our solar system.
NASA discovered the exoplanet WASP-127b where wind speed exceeds 30,000 km per hour
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