Over the past 2-3 decades detailed observations have been made with telescopes and spacecraft of neighboring planets in our solar system. It was clear that their turbulent atmosphere was unstable. It is constantly changing, just like the weather on Earth. Astronomers believe that this difference likely occurs with exoplanets orbiting other stars as well.
Recently, an international team of astronomers revealed that by combining years of observations from the Hubble Space Telescope, instruments of NASA and the United States and the European Space Agency. Compatible with computer modeling, this has found evidence of large hurricanes and other weather-related activities on Jupiter-sized exoplanets. Located 880 light-years away, the planet is called WASP-121 b, and is an uninhabitable star. Hubble took the images in 2016, 2018 and 2019.
Astronomers have found that WASP-121b has a constantly changing atmosphere. It orbits so close to its host star that its orbital period is only 1.27 days, and this close proximity indicates that the planet is tidally locked, with the star always facing one side of its host star. In the same way as Earth's Moon when we look from Earth, we can only see one side of the Moon. Meanwhile, WASP-121b's daytime temperature is close to 3,450 degrees Fahrenheit. On the side facing the star.
Image credits: NASA, ESA, Quentin Changat (ESA/STScI), Mehdi Zamani (ESA/Hubble)
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