Magnetism disrupts winds on ‘hot Jupiter’ exoplanet
By
Ashley Yeager
7:00am, May 26, 2017
HAT-P 7b is a windy world. Stiff easterlies typically whip through the atmosphere of the distant exoplanet, but sometimes the powerful gales blow in surprisingly varied directions. Now, simulations of the planet’s magnetic field lines, illustrated here as a rainbow of scrawled marks, reveal that HAT-P 7b’s magnetic field influences the winds, even turning some into westerlies. The result, published May 15 in Nature Astronomy, could lead to a better understanding of the atmospheres of other exoplanets.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/magnetism-disrupts-winds-hot-jupiter-exoplanet
