Earth’s atmosphere is such that it allows us to live and survive. The weather in such an atmosphere can make the life pretty disruptive and dangerous given the number of typhoons, storms and extreme temperatures on our planet. But if and when compared with the mind numbing crazy weather that has been witnessed across the universe, one has to be extremely thankful for the Earth’s forgiving weather.
Check out some of the most harrowingly wicked weather conditions witnessed across the observable universe.
1. Weather in Space
Not just stars or planets that have weather, the vast and never ending space also has much room for weather to exist. Coronal mass ejections and solar flares produce a wind of charged particles. When these hit Earth, they cause the famous aurora borealis.
But solar flares are just a small phenomenon that is nothing when compared with galactic wind. These winds are produced by the formation and destruction of stars.
Image Credit: datacenterjournal.com
2. Weather of Venus
So if you ever had some interest in our solar system, you may have come across about the weather and atmosphere of Venus. Even coming second from the sun, the planet is the hottest planet in the solar system. All this, thanks to the 20 kms of thick cloud that drops pure sulfuric rain on the surface of Venus.
Image Credit: davidreneke.com
3. Storms of Saturn & Jupiter
The famous ‘Great Red Spot’ of Jupiter is a storm that was first spotted way back in 17th century. By the end of 19th century, the storm was measured approximately at 40,000kms. By 1995 the storm shrank to 20,000 and by 2014, through the lenses of Hubble Telescope, the storm was measured at 16000kms.
In December 2010, the Cassini probe began monitoring newly formed lightning storms on Saturn. Over the course of 201 days, it moved the entire way around the planet and caught up with itself. When it crashed into its own wake, it faded away.
Image Credit: scitechdaily.com
4. Magnetic Tornadoes
Not far in a distant galaxy but in our own, our sun is capable of producing magnetic tornadoes. These tornados are made of superheated gas and plasma, heat ranging up to 2 million degrees Celsius. The winds in the tornado spin at around 300,000kms per hour.
Image Credit: ytimg.com
5. Stellar Hailstorms
NGC 1333-IRAS 4B is a baby solar system and its central star is protected in a blanket of gas and dust. In the center of the blanket is a denser disk of materials that is most likely eventually form planets. This center disk is experiencing what can best be described as a hail storm. Enough water to fill Earth’s oceans five times over is raining onto the central disk.
Image Credit: nowyouknowfacts.com
6. Brown Dwarfs
The universe is full of amazing and wicked celestial bodies which make any new discovery far more brilliant than previous. Brown dwarfs are some of the amazing celestial bodies. Brown Dwarfs are stars that do not have enough mass to keep them ignited. This means that the surface temperature is cool, in some cases cooler than human body.
Scientists with the help of Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes are observing a brown dwarf namely 2MASSJ22282889-431026, or 2M2228 for short, which is 39.1 light years away. The brown dwarf changes its brightness every 90 minutes. And the dwarf is believed to have storm almost as that of Earth. The surface temperature is close to around 600 degree Celsius which allows molten iron to drop as rain.
Image Credit: wellbredinsolence.com
7. Extreme Heat Waves
Due to its extreme movement and vicinity to its, HD 80606b is a planet which possess roughly 4 times the mass of Jupiter. Its 111.4 Earth-day orbit takes it to 0.88 times the distance from the Sun to the Earth. Due to such high speed movements, the temperature of the planet changes from 527 degree Celsius to 1227 degree Celsius within a short span of 6 hours.
The planet produces winds of 17700kms per hour across the surface. The spin of the planet then creates giant storms that carry the heat around.
Image Credit: cas.sc.edu
8. Clouds Of Mercury
The biggest star in the Andromeda galaxy is Alpha Andromedae, has been a subject of interest for most of the astronomers across the globe. This was the first star to have a known weather system. Our sun chances its composition with the help of magnetism but Alpha Andromedae doesn’t have any magnetism.
After a close watch on the plane for seven straight years, astronomers have concluded that the weather patterns found on Earth is similar to that of Alpha Andromedae. It seems like mercury is the only element in the star able to form clouds which is creating such weather anomalies.
Image Credit: robertwcorkery.com
9. Green Crystal Rain
Around 1350 light years away from Earth lay a proto-star HOPS-68. The star has collapsing dust which has tiny shards of olivine, a green crystal used to make jewelry. The cloud around HOPS-68 is pretty cold, around –170 degrees Celsius.
Image Credit: nowyouknowfacts.com
10. Storms Made Of Glass
Dubbed as ‘Hot Jupiter’ planet HD 189733b is around 63 light years away from our sun. The planet is huge and is 13% more massive than Jupiter. The planet is 30 times closer to its sun than Earth is to its sun. The surface temperature is 980 degrees Celsius, and it has winds of 6400kms per hour.
Due to such vigorous movements, the planet loses up to 600 million kilograms of its atmosphere every second. Having the blue shade, the planet doesn’t have air; instead the atmosphere has particles of silicate. That means that the surface is covered in rainstorms, but instead of water, pieces of glass move sideways at five times the speed of sound.
Image Credit: stackoverflow.com
Featured Image Credit: nenarazmar.com
Please Note: Any information picked from here must be attributed to skymetweather.com
