Astronomers have mapped the clouds on a planet outside our solar system – the first exoweather report. The outlook on the Jupiter-sized Kepler-7b is cloudy to the west but pleasantly clear to the east.
Kepler-7b was one of the first exoplanets to be spotted by NASA's Kepler space telescope, so it has been extensively studied. The alien world is a gas giant about 1.5 times as big as Jupiter, but only about a tenth as dense, and a bit less dense than polystyrene. Variations in light from the planet suggested a bright spot on its western hemisphere, but it wasn't apparent whether this was caused by clouds or heat.
Now researchers have used data from the Spitzer infrared space telescope to measure the planet's temperature and found that the spot is too cool to be heat from the planet itself. Instead, it must be light from the planet's star bouncing off high clouds in the atmosphere.
And in case you are still wondering, it is always a sandals rather than umbrella day on Kepler-7b: the average surface temperature is near 6000 °C.
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