Cyclones on exoplanet WASP-121 b @ESAScienceHub

Uploaded October 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago

This video shows massive cyclones being repeatedly created and destroyed on exoplanet WASP-121 b because of huge temperature differences between the star-facing side and the dark side of the exoplanet.

WASP 121-b is tidally locked, meaning that the same side of the planet is always facing its host star. The result is that the star-facing side (the ‘day side’) is heated to super-hot temperatures of more than 3000 K.

In this research, an international team of astronomers assembled and reprocessed Hubble observations of the exoplanet made in the years 2016, 2018 and 2019. This provided them with a unique dataset that allowed them not only to analyse the atmosphere of WASP-121 b, but also to see how it changed across several years. The team then used sophisticated modelling techniques to demonstrate that the changes they saw over time could be explained by weather patterns in the exoplanet's atmosphere, as seen here.

The result represents a significant step forward in potentially observing weather patterns on exoplanets. The video has been slowed down to show the patterns in the exoplanet’s atmosphere in more detail.

Credit: NASA, ESA, Q. Changeat et al., M. Zamani (ESA/Hubble)

We are Europe's gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe's space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out https://www.esa.int/ to get up to speed on everything space related. Copyright information about our videos is available here: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Terms_and_conditions_of_use_of_images_and_videos_available_on_the_esa_website

How can we access data from ESAs astronomy missions?

The depths of space, Euclid, LISA, and the mysterious effects of gravity – Expedition Sound 4

$An extragalactic star-forming region This video shows a view of M33, also known as the Triangulum galaxy, taken by ESAs Gaia satellite, zooming in to show the star-forming region NGC 604, first as viewed by Gaia and then by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Located some 2.4 million light-years away, M33 is one of our neighbouring galaxies and is part of the Local Group, the assembly of galaxies that includes our Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy. A spiral galaxy with less than one tenth the mass of the Milky Way or Andromeda, M33 is the third largest member of the Local Group and is thought to be a satellite galaxy of Andromeda. Gaias detections correspond to about 40 000 of the galaxys brightest stars, a small fraction of the total stellar population of M33, which amounts to roughly 40 billion stars. A red square indicates the star-forming region NGC 604, which is located to the top left of M33s centre in this view. The video zooms in to show Gaias view of NGC 604, and finally fades to reveal Hubbles image The comparison between the Gaia and Hubble views shows that Gaia has detected about 150 individual stars in the NGC 604 region, which spans only about 0.55 square arcminutes in the sky. This number might not sound big in absolute terms, but it is impressive when considering that the observed field is about 2000 times smaller than the area covered by the full Moon in the sky, revealing that Gaia is able to detect a significant number of extragalactic stars. This is even more remarkable given that Gaias observed stars are automatic detections obtained by the satellites onboard computing system while scanning over the region, whereas the stars detected in astronomical images, such as those from Hubble, are the result of dedicated observations obtained by pointing at specific regions on the sky, which are later analysed by scientists. More information about this video can be found at http://sci.esa.int/gaia/59028-an-extragalactic-star-forming-region/ Full story: http://sci.esa.int/gaia/59023-gaia-s-snapshot-of-another-galaxy/$