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

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: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.