“Supersonic” planet was a “hot Jupiter” HD 189733b in the constellation Vulpecula. To such conclusion the British planetary scientists, who found that its atmosphere is dominated by powerful winds blowing at a speed of 8,700 kilometers per hour. This is described in a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
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The very exoplanet was discovered in October 2005 year, using telescopes at the observatory of Haute Provence. It is 1.14 times larger than Jupiter, and almost as many times heavier than him. It orbits the star HD 189733 A, whose size and weight are about 80% of the sun. HD 189733b is located about 30 times closer to its star than the Earth is to the sun.
This is a typical gas giant class “hot Jupiter.” Its proximity to the Earth, and a very unusual blue color of the atmosphere have attracted attention from astronomers. In recent years, scientists have managed to get pictures of her in different frequency bands, found in its atmosphere of carbon dioxide, water, and silicon, as well as to find out what the star gradually “blow away” this giant gas shell.
Another unusual feature of the planet – “supersonic wind” – Lowden found Tim and Peter Wheatley of the University of Warwick (UK) researchers have made the first map of the weather in the upper layers of its atmosphere using a tool HARPS, mounted on one of the telescopes of the European Southern Observatory in Chile.
As explained by planetary scientists, the position of some of the lines in the spectrum of large planets like HD 189733b, is largely dependent on which way and how hard blowing wind its atmosphere. If winds are moving toward Earth, then the atmosphere of a planet will appear to us to be more blue, as if they are flying in the opposite direction, then this part of the air bag will be “blush”.
Due to the fact that the brightness of stars varies to the edges and the center, the scientists were able to make an accurate map of the weather, “Hot Jupiter” and to examine every “brain” using the wind speed.
Three years ago, another group of planetary scientists have tried to measure the wind speed, based on the how fast moving clouds in the atmosphere of HD 189733b. Their calculations showed that the wind on HD 189733b was incredibly fast – their speed to exceed a thousand kilometers an hour.
How do I find Lowden and Wheatley, actually wind in the atmosphere HD 189733b even faster – they move with west to east at a speed in excess of 2.4 kilometers per second, or about 8.7 thousand kilometers per hour. Like the speed of seven times the speed of sound in the air, would be enough to overcome the attraction of the moon and fly to the moon’s surface.
This measure does HD 189733b present world record holder in the known planets. It is believed Lowden and Wheatley, their technique, in principle, can be used to estimate the wind speed at less extreme worlds than this “hot Jupiter”, which will allow us to better assess the extent to fit one or another candidate for the role of “twin Earth”.
Recall to Pravda.Ru reported that on the eve of scientists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge have found “Death Star”, capable of absorbing the world.
Recently, NASA announced the discovery of another stone exoplanets, the size of more than 1.6 times the Earth’s .
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