First Map of an Extrasolar Planet

jiawen writes "Data from the Spitzer Space Telescope has been used by researchers to make the first-ever map of an extrasolar planet. It's a weather map, more precisely, showing temperature variations over the surface of a Hot Jupiter. It really is hot: even the coldest regions are about 1200 degrees F."

Comments

Re:1200 degrees F?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only real temperature is Kelvin (which admittetly is based on Celcius which makes a lot more sense than the screwed-up Fahrenheit scale imho :)
1 200 degrees Fahrenheit = 922.038889 kelvin

Get the paper here

[Ambitwistor]

You can read a preprint of the published paper for free. (The published version is here, but full text access requires a Nature subscription.)

For all the non-americans, those temperatures...

[ricky-road-flats]

The warmest spot is 927 C, on the equivalent of Jupiter's Great Red Spot, and the coolest region is 'only' 649 C.

Re:1200 degrees F?

[Jeremy Erwin]

Minimum 973 K +/- 33 K
Maximum 1211 K +/- 11 K

That's 1751 +/-59 R and 2171 +/-20 R, for you non SI types. Subtract 459 degrees to get Fahrenheit.

Re:Amazing that this is possible at all

[jd]

Once the square kilometer array has been constructed, we will be able to get maps of this level of detail on Earth-sized planets at 1 AU from its sun at distances of around 50 light-years or so. If they made it a square mile, they could do the same at a distance of 100 light-years.

Oh, one small correction. We'd be able to get continuous maps. In other words, you'd be able to see temperature (and atmosphere composition) changes over time.

(At that point, something like SETI would get potentially much less of an intragalactic lottery and be much more interesting.)

I honestly don't know what resolution the NASA folks are working at, but the image presented is almost certainly some form of interpolation from available data, as even a super-Jovian planet is far too small to get more than a pixel or two resolution at any distance. I don't quite know what they're calculating, rather than directly observing, but there is simply no way they're getting that kind of resolution with direct measurement. Not of a planet.

There's nothing wrong with mathematical techniques, and if they're as good as they seem to be, then obviously the square kilometer array will be able to resolve Earth-sized planets at greater resolution than initially expected. Which is good, so long as the methods applied are valid.

(Let's face it - if anyone quibbles with these results, who do you think NASA would send over there to personally check? The person getting fame and glory for the organisation, or the person who is spoiling the party?)

Re:Interesting in a way i suppose

[radtea]

but seriously. It orbits very close to its sun so is anyone surprised the damn thing is really hot?

The interesting science is how the temperature is distributed, not that it is really hot. The planet is almost certainly tidally locked, so one side faces the star all the time. However, the hottest part of the planet is not at the "high noon" position on the "surface" (which for some reason is what the article calls the cloud-tops).

The highest temperature region is about 30 degrees (angle, not temperature!) away from high noon. This, plus the relatively small temperature difference between the light hemisphere and dark hemisphere tell us that the planetary atmosphere is subject to extremely high winds, which are distributing the heat.

This is a fascinating way of probing the dynamics of planetary atmospheres under extreme conditions.