Mach7
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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.
