Astronomers reveal the Topsy-Turvy atmosphere of a distant planet

The atmosphere of a distant world has been mapped in detail for the first time, revealing a strange, Topsy-Turvy weather system, with the fastest winds ever seen Ileplicablicably blowing around the planet’s stratosphere.

Astronomers have studied WASP-121B, also Nown as Tylos, sincere 2015. The planet, which is 900 light years away, is a huge bullet with gas twice as large 30 soil hours. This dense lane heats the planet’s atmosphere to temperatures of 2500 ° C, warm enough to boil iron.

Now Julia Seidel at the European Southern Observatory in Chile and her Colugues has looked inside Tylos’ burning hot atmosphere using the very large telescope of the observatory, and they found that it has at least three different layers of gas moving in different differences – Unlike something astronomers have ever seen. “It’s absolutely crazy, science fiction-y patterns and behavior,” says Seidel.

The planetary atmosphere in our solar system shares a largely similar structure as each other, where a jet stream of strong window in the lower part of the atmosphere dries at internal temperature is different, while winds in the upper layers are more affected by temperature created by the sun’s Heat that warms daylight side of the planet but not the other.

Yet in Tylos’s atmosphere, it is the window of the lower layer that is driver by heat from the star of the planet that travels away from the hot side, while the jet stream seems to be mostly in the middle layer of the atmosphere traveling around Tylos equator in the direction of the planet’s rotation. An upper layer of hydrogen also shows Jetstream-like features flowing around the planet but also driving outward in the room. This is difficult to explain using our current models, says Seidel. “What we see is actually exactly the inverse of what comes out of the theory.”

What’s more, the jet stream at Tylos is the most powerful ever seen, blasting about 70,000 kilometers per hour over half the planet – double the speed of the previous record holder. Exactly what drives this speed is unclear, but the researchers believe it may be for the planet’s strong magnetic field or Becaus of ultraviolet radiation from its star. “This may change the flow patterns, but all this is a lot of specialty,” says Seidel.