winds
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Scientists chart Mach 7 winds on a Jupiter-sized exoplanet
When scientists discovered a Jupiter-sized exoplanet in the Vulpecula constellation, they knew the weather there wasn't great. That's because HD 189733b orbits its star every 2.2 days at a speed of 341,000 mph and has an average surface temperature of around 2,240 F. A team from the University of Warwick in the UK has now made a rough weather map of the body -- the first ever for a planet outside our solar system -- and that news ain't great, either. Using the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) instrument located in Chile, the team calculated that winds on HD 189733b rage at 5,400 mph, or seven times the speed of sound.
Japan launches Kizuna satellite, hopes it will deliver high-speed internet
Granted, most of us here in America would turn our noses up at receiving in-home broadband via satellite -- after all, cable and DSL seem to be treating most of us quite alright -- but Japan is hoping to provide access to more regions in Asia-Pacific with its recently launched Kizuna. The experimental satellite is not yet intended for commercial use, but if all goes well, it will enable data transmissions "of up to 1.2 gigabytes per second" at a low cost across Japan and 19 other locales in Southeast Asia. Unfortunately, we've no idea when it will escape the bondage of testing and actually be put to good use, but at least Japan's well on its way to actually establishing that wireless island, eh?[Via CNN, thanks to everyone who sent this in]
