{"id":192083,"date":"2025-12-15T00:11:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T00:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/192083\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T00:11:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T00:11:08","slug":"a-planet-900-light-years-away-has-weather-so-extreme-it-feels-like-science-fiction-its-70000-km-h-winds-carry-vaporized-iron-and-even-titanium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/192083\/","title":{"rendered":"A Planet 900 Light-Years Away Has Weather So Extreme “It Feels Like Science Fiction”. It’s 70,000 km\/h Winds Carry Vaporized Iron and Even Titanium"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" <\/a>Illustration of Tylos\u2019 extreme atmosphere. Credit: ZME Science\/Midjourney AI. <\/p>\n

Image an alien planet where savage winds rip through the atmosphere carrying molten iron and titanium particles. Such a planet actually exists. Known as WASP-121b, this exoplanet is located 900 light-years away in the constellation Puppis. Using the European Southern Observatory\u2019s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, astronomers have mapped the 3D structure of the atmosphere of WASP-121b, marking the first study of the atmosphere of an exoplanet in such depth and detail. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s one of the wildest exoplanets astronomers have ever encountered. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis planet\u2019s atmosphere behaves in ways that challenge our understanding of how weather works \u2014 not just on Earth, but on all planets,\u201d says Julia Victoria Seidel, a researcher at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and lead author of the study. \u201cIt feels like something out of science fiction.\u201d<\/p>\n

A World of Extremes<\/p>\n

WASP-121b, also known as Tylos, is an ultra-hot Jupiter, a gas giant that orbits its host star so closely that a year there lasts just 30 Earth hours. The planet is tidally locked, meaning one side perpetually faces the star, reaching scorching temperatures of up to 2,500\u00b0C \u2014 hot enough to vaporize metals like iron. The other side, shrouded in eternal night, is significantly cooler. This extreme temperature difference drives a chaotic and violent atmosphere.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/a>Artist\u2019s rendering of the exoplanet WASP-121b. It shows only a portion of the exoplanet, showcasing the three layers of its atmosphere with more detail. Credit: ESO\/M. Kornmesser<\/p>\n

By combining the light from all four telescope units of the VLT, the team used the ESPRESSO instrument to observe Tylos during a full transit across its star. This allowed them to probe the planet\u2019s atmosphere in unprecedented detail, detecting the signatures of iron, sodium, hydrogen, and even titanium. These elements acted as tracers, enabling the researchers to map winds across three distinct layers of the atmosphere, with iron winds at the bottom, followed by a very fast jet stream of sodium, and finally an upper layer of hydrogen winds.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we found was surprising: a jet stream rotates material around the planet\u2019s equator, while a separate flow at lower levels of the atmosphere moves gas from the hot side to the cooler side,\u201d says Seidel. \u201cThis kind of climate has never been seen before on any planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

The jet stream, which spans half the planet, reaches speeds of up to 70,000 kilometers per hour \u2014 nearly double the speed of the fastest winds previously recorded on an exoplanet earlier this year<\/a>. \u201cEven the strongest hurricanes in the solar system seem calm in comparison,\u201d Seidel adds.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s truly mind-blowing that we\u2019re able to study details like the chemical makeup and weather patterns of a planet at such a vast distance,\u201d says Bibiana Prinoth, a PhD student at Lund University and ESO, who led a companion study published in\u00a0Astronomy & Astrophysics. \u201cThis experience makes me feel like we\u2019re on the verge of uncovering incredible things we can only dream about now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tylos is obviously not your typical exoplanet. But it\u2019s so bizarre and strange that it\u2019s defying what astronomers thought they knew about planetary formation. Unlike the atmospheres of planets in our solar system, where jet streams are typically driven by internal temperature differences, Tylos\u2019s jet stream appears to be influenced by its star\u2019s intense heat and possibly its magnetic field. \u201cWhat we see now is actually exactly the inverse of what comes out of theory,\u201d says Seidel.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a strange world, indeed \u2014 and many more like it likely lie beyond our solar system. While the VLT has proven capable of studying the atmospheres of hot Jupiters like Tylos, smaller, Earth-like planets remain out of reach \u2014 for now. The construction of next-generation telescopes, such as ESO\u2019s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) in Chile\u2019s Atacama Desert, promises to bridge this gap. Best of all, with its advanced instruments, the ELT will be able to probe the atmospheres of rocky exoplanets, potentially uncovering signs of habitability or even life.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ELT will be a game-changer for studying exoplanet atmospheres,\u201d says Prinoth. \u201cThis is just the beginning of what we can achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n

The findings appeared in the journal Nature<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Illustration of Tylos\u2019 extreme atmosphere. Credit: ZME Science\/Midjourney AI. Image an alien planet where savage winds rip through…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[910,66671,61,60,82,103028,103029],"class_list":{"0":"post-192083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-exoplanet","9":"tag-hot-jupiter","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-tylos","14":"tag-wasp-121"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}