Astronomers have uncovered the strongest planetary wind yet, a force faster than the speed of sound that howls across a giant exoplanet named WASP-127b. The jet stream circles the planet’s equator at over 20,000 miles per hour—more powerful than the winds buffeting New Hampshire’s Mount Washington and faster than Neptune’s recorded winds. This groundbreaking discovery was made using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile and published in *Astronomy & Astrophysics*.
WASP-127b, slightly larger than Jupiter but with a much smaller mass, has an atmosphere so extreme that its winds blow 18 times faster than Neptune’s. Since its discovery in 2016, the planet’s perplexing weather patterns have baffled researchers. Thanks to advanced spectroscopy methods, scientists observed how light from WASP-127b’s host star moves through its upper atmosphere and measured particle speeds. The findings revealed a supersonic jet stream where one side of the atmosphere rushes toward Earth while the other blasts away, creating a wind so fast that it defies our understanding of exoplanet atmospheres.
This discovery opens new frontiers in space weather research but also raises questions about how long such extreme winds will remain record-breaking as more advanced instruments are developed.
Source: https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/record-breaking-supersonic-wind-swirls-around-giant-exoplanets-equator