WASP-127b

WASP-127b Latest News

Scientists recently detected ‘supersonic winds’ travelling at a speed of 33,000 km per hour on a giant gaseous planet named WASP-127b. 

About WASP-127b

• It is a large gaseous exoplanet, located in our Milky Way galaxy.
• It is approximately 520 light-years from the earth in a tight orbit around a star similar to our sun.
• It is a type called a hot Jupiter, a gas giant that orbits very close to its host star.
• It orbits its star roughly every four days at just about 5% of the distance between the earth and the sun, leaving it scorched by stellar radiation.
• Like our moon is to the earth, one side of WASP-127b perpetually faces its star—the day side. The other side always faces away—the night side.
• Its atmosphere is about 2,060 degrees Fahrenheit (1,400 degrees Kelvin/1,127 degrees Celsius), with its polar regions less hot than the rest.
• WASP-127b’s diameter is about 30% larger than Jupiter’s, but its mass is only about 16% that of Jupiter’s, making it one of the puffiest planets ever observed.
• Like Jupiter, WASP-127b is composed mainly of hydrogen and helium, but its atmosphere also contains traces of more complex molecules such as carbon monoxide and water.
• WASP-127b is a gas giant planet, which means that it has no rocky or solid surface beneath its atmospheric layers.
• Instead, below the observed atmosphere lies gas that becomes denser and more pressurized the deeper one goes into the planet.
• The supersonic jet stream winds circling WASP-127b at its equator are the fastest of their kind on any known planet.

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WASP-127b FAQs

Q1. When was WASP-127b discovered?

Ans. WASP-127b was discovered in 2016.

Q2. Why are planets named WASP?

Ans. Exoplanets named after astronomical or planet-searching projects include the HAT planets (after the Hungarian Automated Telescope Network (HATNet)), and the WASP planets (after the SuperWASP project), both of which are ground-based efforts.

Q3. How old is the Milky Way?

Ans. Our universe is about 13.8 billion years old, so most galaxies formed when the universe was quite young. Astronomers believe that our own Milky Way galaxy is approximately 13.6 billion years old.

Source: N18