Astronomers have detected cloud movement on a Jupiter-like exoplanet. They also suggest that the clouds may be composed of corundum:
Powerful winds sweep sparkling, gem-bright clouds through the upper atmosphere of the huge alien planet HAT-P-7b, a new study suggests. "This is the first detection of weather on a gas giant planet outside the solar system," study lead author David Armstrong, of the University of Warwick in England, said in a statement.
HAT-P-7b, which is about 40 percent larger than Jupiter, lies 1,040 light-years from Earth. The planet completes one lap around its host star every 2.2 days. As a result of this extreme proximity, HAT-P-7b is tidally locked, meaning it always presents the same face to its parent star, just as the moon always shows just one side to Earth.
[...] "These results show that strong winds circle the planet, transporting clouds from the night side to the day side," he said. "The winds change speed dramatically, leading to huge cloud formations building up, then dying away." And those clouds are almost certainly unlike anything here on Earth, the researchers added: Modeling work suggests that HAT-P-7b's clouds are composed at least partially of corundum, the mineral that forms sapphires and rubies.
Variability in the atmosphere of the hot giant planet HAT-P-7 b (open, DOI: 10.1038/s41550-016-0004) (DX)
(Score: 3, Funny) by rts008 on Friday December 16 2016, @09:51PM
So now I'll have to start mining exoplanets for corundum ore to smelt into ingots for armor/weapon upgrades?
Is there a new teleportation spell for this?....*crickets*
Methinks I stumbled onto the wrong forum... ;-)
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday December 16 2016, @09:59PM
You n'wah!
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(Score: 2) by rts008 on Friday December 16 2016, @10:11PM
It may be lack of caffeine, or lack of knowledge, but I have to respectfully ask: What? I really don't understand, and am curious enough to want to.
BTW, my intent was to start off a discussion(hopefully on-topic), but have limited knowledge of the subject(but high interest), and seeing no comments for a good while, well...
I have to say, your reply was unexpected to me, as well as inexplicable to me...cool, I'm hoping to learn something :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @10:14PM
I think "you n'wah" was a gaming reference to follow your own. What is it you're hoping to understand about the article?
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday December 16 2016, @10:46PM
It's a lack of coffee causing inadvertent butter fingers on the keyboard. That's what I'm going with until I receive new data....
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday December 16 2016, @10:47PM
It's a much older meme than "Stop right there, criminal scum!"
This should jog your memory:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47HgrBeg1t8 [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MnhhBoioCI [youtube.com]
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(Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Friday December 16 2016, @10:12PM
I don't know, this parallels my first thoughts. Think of all the flawless rubies and sapphires awaiting you.
(Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Friday December 16 2016, @10:23PM
OK, rts008 has inspired me to see if I can get some some conversation going. I also find this interesting and after reading through the linked items and spending too much time on Wikipedia I'm still wondering, what would cause a gas planet to have the aluminum and oxygen for this while Jupiter doesn't? Or does it?
IDK
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @10:46PM
You're not going to get much of a meaningful answer here, we simply don't know enough about stellar formation. There are a million possibilities, the short answer is "that's what happened to be there when the planet formed". Perhaps the tidal locking causes more of the gas giant to churn, bringing heavier atoms into the atmosphere.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday December 16 2016, @10:49PM
My question is how the hell are these "rubies" floating in the clouds? That's what really bakes my noodle.
It's like Interstellar were they land on clouds that are solid. Huh? I guess there would be differences in density or something, but that doesn't explain how a "ruby" still floats within them. Neither does it explain how Matt Damon in a space suit can walk on top of them.
Sometimes I think the astrophysicist are just fucking with us.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Friday December 16 2016, @10:53PM
I think the best answer is:
Our model of a "normal" solar system was for a long time based on what we see in our own. Some inner rocky planets, an asteroid belt, some gas giants, Kuiper belt (which has expanded dramatically, and now we are looking for a new gas giant).
Now we have Kepler data and we are finding all sorts of crazy planetary scenarios. Like gas giants orbiting closer to their star than mercury. Possible "ocean planets". Rocky planets smaller than Neptune but bigger than Earth. A Saturn-like planet with rings that are orders of magnitude bigger.
We don't know for sure what caused this, and it is harder to characterize the atmospheres of exoplanets than it is to find them. Hopefully the James Webb Space Telescope [nasa.gov] will allow us to better characterize the atmospheres and surfaces of exoplanets. Heck, we might find indirect evidence of alien life within the first year of launching the telescope.
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(Score: 3, Funny) by Dunbal on Saturday December 17 2016, @02:40AM
Still waiting for Thread...
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Saturday December 17 2016, @08:11AM
what would cause a gas planet to have the aluminum and oxygen for this while Jupiter doesn't?
What makes you think Jupiter doesn't? Aluminum tends to be a lot denser than hydrogen, water, and methane so it's going to be stuck way down. You won't see it in the atmosphere beyond really low trace amounts (unless these storms are more adept at pulling up material from below than I first assume). This exoplanet is extremely hot for starters. Anything light has been vaporized off by the combination of heat and star wind. Thus, we don't have the extensive layers of atmosphere over anything containing aluminum. That also enables corundum to exist in gas and liquid states as well as solid.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 17 2016, @04:18PM
You couldn't read the next three words after the quote?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 18 2016, @01:41AM
You couldn't read the next three words after the quote?
I find that question remarkably useless. It adds nothing to the conversation than to say that you are a jerk. I'm sure we really all ought to learn all about how amazing you can be as a jerk, but... could you please be a jerk in a constructive way? Is that too much to ask?