Call it the deep blue dot. For the first time, scientists have seen the visible color of a distant alien world. The exoplanet — called HD 189733b — is 63 light-years from Earth and a “deep cobalt blue,” with raging storms of glass rain and super-fast winds, scientists say. *snip

The exoplanet’s weather is less than ideal. Its atmosphere is more than 1,832 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius) and the planet rains glass sideways in 4,350 mile per hour (7,000 km/h) winds, according to Hubble officials.”

Hmm, it’s raining again.. might need to take the car today.

molten glass? no wonder it looks like a marble.

At 63 light years away I’m guessing that’s an artist’s impression of what it looks like.

let me link you to the story…

http://www.space.com/21928-alien-planet-blue-color-revealed.html

pommiejohn said:

At 63 light years away I’m guessing that’s an artist’s impression of what it looks like.

At 63 light years away I wonder how they can determine these details, and how reliable it is.

From a link from the link:

“Because the planet is so far from Earth and so small compared with its star, the researchers can only measure the total light from the planet-star system. “We looked for a change in that total light,” Knutson explained. “If the night side is cooler and the day side is hotter, then as the day side rotates into view, you see an increase in the amount of light from the system.”

Differences in the system’s total light while HD 189733b was at various points in its orbit were translated into temperature differences between the planet’s day and night sides.

The hottest region on the planet is a single hot spot on the day side of the planet that is twice as big as the Great Red Spot on Jupiter and a scorching 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit (926 degrees Celsius). Surprisingly, the hot spot was not located at the “high noon” point on the planet, where the star is directly overhead, but instead is shifted over some distance to the East.

“It’s a fairly big shift. On Earth, it’s equivalent to the distance between Seattle and Chicago,” Knutson told SPACE.com.

The shift is likely due to supersonic winds on the planet, which can reach speeds of 6,000 miles per hour (9650 kph)-nearly 8 times the speed of sound traveling in air.

“The best way to picture it is you have this belt of winds circling around, and as it comes past this high noon spot, it’s taking this patch of hotter gas and kind of sweeping it downwind,” Knutson explained.”

http://www.space.com/3780-scientists-map-weather-distant-world.html

roughbarked said:

molten glass? no wonder it looks like a marble.

God doesn’t play dice but he does play marbles

Riff-in-Thyme said:

roughbarked said:

molten glass? no wonder it looks like a marble.

God doesn’t play dice but he does play marbles

Probably cause no one would believe a cubic planet would natural ;)

Cool.