Astronomers spot 'superstorm' on planet in another solar system



A powerful 'superstorm' on a planet in another solar system has been spotted by astronomers.

Winds blowing at more than 6,200mph were detected on the distant world, which orbits a Sun-like star 150 light years away.

The 'exoplanet' HD209458b has about 60% the mass of Jupiter and is located near the constellation of Pegasus.

Circling its parent star at just a 20th of the distance between the Earth and the Sun, it is heated to a temperature of around 1,000C.

An artist's impression of the 'hot Jupiter' planet HD209458b where astronomers have detected a superstorm

But since the planet always has the same side facing the star, one half is very hot while the other is much cooler.

'On Earth, big temperature differences inevitably lead to fierce winds, and as our new measurements reveal, the situation is no different on HD209458b,' said Dr Simon Albrecht, one of the scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, US.



Every 3.5 days the planet moves in front of its star, blocking out a small portion of starlight over a period of three hours.

The 'transiting' events allowed astronomers on Earth to analyse light patterns providing information about the planet's atmosphere.

An instrument called the CRIRES spectrograph at the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope array in Chile, was used to make the observations.

It not only found evidence of poisonous carbon monoxide gas in the planet's atmosphere, but showed how fast it was moving.

The scientists were also able to determine the mass of the planet by measuring the speed of its orbit.

HD209458b was as carbon-rich as Jupiter and Saturn in our own solar system, said the astronomers.

Lead researcher Dr Ignas Snellen, from Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands, said: 'In the future, astronomers may be able to use this type of observation to study the atmospheres of Earth-like planets, to determine whether life also exists elsewhere in the universe.'

The research is reported in the journal Nature.