t’s exciting that studies of exoplanets – distant planets orbiting other suns – are becoming so much more detailed. Today (December 12, 2016), astronomers at University of Warwick in Coventry, England announced they’ve detected evidence of powerful changing winds sweeping across giant exoplanet HAT-P-7b, a world 40% larger than Jupiter, orbiting a star 50% more massive than our sun, some 1,040 light-years away. They say theirs is the first-ever weather report on a gas giant outside our solar system. And what weather! They report the planet’s clouds could be made of vaporized corundum, the mineral that forms rubies and sapphires. If only we could view these clouds, they said, they might be:
… visually stunning.
And think of the hail! David Armstrong of Warwick’s Astrophysics Group led the research. He said the strong winds moving across HAT-P-7b likely lead to catastrophic storms.
This research was published on December 12, 2016 in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Astronomy.
http://earthsky.org/space/exoplanet-hat-p-7b-clouds-rubies-sapphiresarticle continues and photographs
