Astronomers have observed a wild exoplanet with winds reaching incredible speeds of up to 20,000 mph.
Planets outside our solar system can be wild, weird places. Astronomers have discovered exoplanets shaped like a rugby ball, or where it rains gems, or which have one hemisphere covered in lava. And now there’s a new oddity to add to the catalog: a planet with winds that are faster than the speed of sound.
Recommended Videos Now, astronomers have gone back to study the planet again using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope , and they observed winds reaching incredible speeds of up to 20,000 mph. For reference, the fastest winds ever observed in our solar system are on Neptune, and had a speed of 1,120 mph — nowhere even close to these speeds.
The winds move far faster than the planet is rotating, at six times the speed, which has not been seen before and which creates a jetstream whipping around the planet. The extreme nature of the weather on this planet may be because researchers think that it is tidally locked, meaning one side of the planet always faces its star, while the other side always faces out into space.
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