WASHINGTON, May 9 (UPI) -- Researchers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have created the first exoplanet weather map.
Two National Aeronautics and Space Administration teams studied weather conditions on two distant planets. One team of astronomers mapped temperature variations on the surface of a giant gas planet -- HD189733b -- revealing it likely is whipped by roaring winds.
The other team determined gas planet HD149026b is the hottest yet discovered.
"We have mapped the temperature variations with longitude across the entire surface of a planet that is so far away, its light takes 60 years to reach us," said Heather Knutson of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., lead author of the paper describing HD189733b.
Her team measured the infrared light Spitzer identified coming from HD189733b and determined the planet's temperatures range from 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit on its dark side to 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit on its sunlit side.
Since the planet's overall temperature variation is slight, scientists believe surface winds of up to 6,000 mph are distributing the heat around the planet.
Both studies appear in the current issue of the journal Nature.
