Winds of Rubies and Sapphires Strike the Sky of Giant Planet
Signs of powerful changing winds have been detected on a planet 16 times larger than Earth, over 1000 light years away - the first time ever that weather systems have been found on a gas giant outside our solar system - according to new research by the University of Warwick.
Dr David Armstrong in Warwick's Astrophysics Group has discovered that the gas giant HAT-P-7b is affected by large scale changes in the strong winds moving across the planet, likely leading to catastrophic storms.
This discovery was made by monitoring the light being reflected from the atmosphere of HAT-P-7b, and identifying changes in this light, showing that the brightest point of the planet shifts its position.
This shift is caused by an equatorial jet with dramatically variable wind-speeds - at their fastest, pushing vast amounts of cloud across the planet. The clouds themselves would be visually stunning - likely made up of corundum, the mineral which forms rubies and sapphires.
The planet could never be inhabitable, due to its likely violent weather systems, and unaccommodating temperatures. One side of the planet always faces the star, because it is tidally locked, and that side remains much hotter than the other - the day side average temperature on HAT-P-7 being 2860K.
First discovered in 2008, HAT-P-7b (Kepler 2b) is 320 parsecs (over 1040 light years) away from us. It is an exoplanet 40% larger than Jupiter and 500 times more massive than the Earth - and orbits a star 50% more massive, and twice as large, as the Sun.
Phys.Org
The results are published in Nature Astronomy this week. http://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-016-0004
