Artist’s impression of supersonic winds on WASP-127b

This artist’s visualisation of WASP-127b, a giant gas planet located about 520 light-years from Earth, shows its newly discovered supersonic jet winds that move around the planet’s equator. With a speed of 9 km per second (33 000 km/h), this is the fastest jetstream of its kind ever measured in the Universe.

By tracking the speed of molecules in the atmosphere with the CRIRES+ instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, researchers found that one side of the planet’s atmosphere is moving towards us and the other away from us. This indicates that there is a powerful wind current going around the planet.