Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

See the weather patterns on a wild, super hot exoplanet

Georgina Torbet
By

When it comes to understanding exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system, the big challenge is in not only finding these planets, but also understanding what they are like. And one of the biggest factors that scientists are interested in is whether an exoplanet has an atmosphere and, if so, what it is composed of. But, just like with weather here on Earth, exoplanet atmospheres aren’t static. So the Hubble Space Telescope was recently used for an intriguing observation — comparing data from an exoplanet atmosphere that had previously been observed, to see how it changed over time.

Hubble looked at planet WASP-121 b, an extreme planet that is so close to its star that a year there lasts just 30 hours. Its surface temperatures are over 3,000 Kelvins, or 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, which researchers predict would lead to some wild weather phenomena. As it is such an extreme planet, WASP-121 b is well-known and has been observed by Hubble several times over the years, beginning in 2016.

This is an artist’s impression of the exoplanet WASP 121-b, also known as Tylos. The exoplanet’s appearance is based on Hubble data of the object. Using Hubble observations, another team of scientists had previously reported the detection of heavy metals such as magnesium and iron escaping from the upper atmosphere of the ultra-hot Jupiter exoplanet, marking it as the first of such detection. The exoplanet is orbiting dangerously close to its host star, roughly 2.6% of the distance between Earth and the Sun, placing it on the verge of being ripped apart by its host star's tidal forces. The powerful gravitational forces have altered the planet's shape.
This is an artist’s impression of the exoplanet WASP 121-b, also known as Tylos. The exoplanet is orbiting dangerously close to its host star at roughly 2.6% of the distance between Earth and the Sun, placing it on the verge of being ripped apart by its host star’s tidal forces. The powerful gravitational forces have altered the planet’s shape. NASA, ESA, Q. Changeat et al., M. Zamani (ESA/Hubble)

In total, the researchers combined four sets of observations that were made using Hubble, processing each to get a picture of how the planet changed over the years. “Our dataset represents a significant amount of observing time for a single planet and is currently the only consistent set of such repeated observations,” said researcher Quentin Changeat of the Space Telescope Science Institute in a statement.

Recommended Videos

“The information that we extracted from those observations was used to characterize (infer the chemistry, temperature, and clouds) of the atmosphere of WASP-121 b at different times. This provided us with an exquisite picture of the planet, changing in time,” he said.

Related

The researchers produced a stunning video showing the weather patterns they modeled on the planet. The footage was slowed down to show the patterns more clearly, and the results are thought to be due to huge cyclones in the planet’s atmosphere. These are created because one side of the planet always faces its star, so it gets much hotter than the side facing into space, and the huge temperature difference creates this dramatic weather.

WASP-121 b weather patterns (slowed)

Understanding more about the weather on this exoplanet can help scientists learn about weather on other planets, which will become more important as more observations are made of exoplanet atmospheres.

“Weather on Earth is responsible for many aspects of our life, and in fact, the long-term stability of Earth’s climate and its weather is likely the reason why life could emerge in the first place,” said Changeat. “Studying exoplanets’ weather is vital to understanding the complexity of exoplanet atmospheres, especially in our search for exoplanets with habitable conditions.”

The research will be published in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Space Writer
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
James Webb investigates a super puffy exoplanet where it rains sand
Artistic concept of the exoplanet WASP-107b and its parent star. Even though the rather cool host star emits a relatively small fraction of high-energy photons, they can reach deep into the planet’s fluffy atmosphere.

Exoplanets come in many forms, from dense, rocky planets like Earth and Mars to gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn. But some planets discovered outside our solar system are even less dense than gas giants and are a type known informally as super-puff or cotton candy planets. One of the least dense exoplanets known, WASP-107b, was recently investigated using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the planet's weather seems to be as strange as its puffiness.

The planet is more atmosphere than core, with a fluffy atmosphere in which Webb spotted water vapor and sulfur dioxide. Strangest of all, Webb also saw silicate sand clouds, suggesting that it would rain sand between the upper and lower layers of the atmosphere. The planet is almost as big as Jupiter but has a tiny mass similar to that of Neptune.

Read more
Hubble spots an Earth-sized exoplanet just 22 light-years away
An artist’s concept of the nearby exoplanet, LTT 1445Ac, which is the size of Earth. The planet orbits a red dwarf star.

Although astronomers have now discovered more than 5,000 exoplanets, or planets outside of the solar system, the large majority of these planets are considerably larger than Earth. That's partly because it's easier to spot larger planets from tremendous distances across space. So it's exciting when an Earth-sized planet is discovered -- and the Hubble Space Telescope has recently confirmed that a nearby planet, which is diminutive by exoplanet standards, is 1.07 times the size of Earth.

The planet LTT 1445Ac was first discovered by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) in 2022, but it was hard to determine its exact size due to the plane of its orbit around its star as seen from Earth. “There was a chance that this system has an unlucky geometry and if that’s the case, we wouldn’t measure the right size. But with Hubble’s capabilities we nailed its diameter,” said lead researcher Emily Pass of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in a statement.

Read more
Hubble snaps an autumnal nebula glowing orange from young, hot stars
Tthis image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features a glistening scene in red. It reveals a small regio

A new image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a nebula in the gorgeous colors of autumn, just in time for leaf-changing season in the northern hemisphere. It shows a part of a nebula called Westerhout 5, located 7,000 light-years away and also known as the Soul Nebula.

It is an emission nebula, meaning that its gorgeous colors and shapes are created by gas which has become ionized by starlight from bright, hot stars. As very massive stars are born and give off large gusts of radiation and streams of particles called stellar winds, these blow away nearby material which prevents more stars from forming too close. This creates cavities within the nebula, and in between these cavities more gas is pushed together. Then more stars can form in these now denser regions.

Read more