Scientists discovered winds of over 5,400 miles per hour on a planet outside of Earth's solar system.
This staggering wind speed is 20 times greater than the fastest ever recorded on Earth, and would be seven times the speed of sound on our home planet, the University of Warwick reported.
"This is the first ever weather map from outside of our solar system. Whilst we have previously known of wind on exoplanets, we have never before been able to directly measure and map a weather system," said lead researcher Tom Louden, of the University of Warwick's Astrophysics group.
To make their findings, the researchers measured the velocities on two sides of the planet, dubbed HD 189733b. They spotted a torrential wind with speeds of over 5,400 miles per hour moving from the daytime side to the nighttime side. They were able to measure these velocities using high-resolution spectroscopy of the Sodium absorption present in the planet's atmosphere. As parts of HD 189733b's atmosphere moves towards or away from Earth the Doppler effect changes the wavelengths of this feature, allowing speeds to be measured.
"The surface of the star is brighter at the [center] than it is at the edge, so as the planet moves in front of the star the relative amount of light blocked by different parts of the atmosphere changes. For the first time we've used this information to measure the velocities on opposite sides of the planet independently, which gives us our velocity map," Louden said.
In the future, this novel technique could be used to study the conditions of Earth-like planets and potentially even aid in the search for alien life.
"We are tremendously excited to have found a way to map weather systems on distant planets. As we develop the technique further we will be able to study wind flows in increasing detail and make weather maps of smaller planets. Ultimately this technique will allow us to image the weather systems on Earth-like planets," Peter Wheatley of the University of Warwick's Astrophysics Group concluded.
The findings were published in a recent edition of The Astronomical Journal Letters.
