Belinda Smith

That's fine, though.

It's rough where I come from.

The strongest recorded wind speed, not in a tornado, was just over 400 kilometres an hour, almost exactly 30 years ago, actually, in April of 1996.

And it was recorded on Barrow Island, which is off the Western Australian coast.

But this 400 kilometres, or even your guess of 700, they both pale in comparison to the winds that whip around planets elsewhere.

To explain how we know this, here's University of Southern Queensland astronomer Dr Chelsea Huang, starting with what wind is.

Wow.

Okay.

So my sheets would dry very, very quickly in these winds I'm hearing.

Wow.

Okay.

So, okay.

And this is the result of these really massive differences in temperature in the atmosphere.

Yes.

And they're causing these really strong high-pressure and low-pressure systems, and that pushes the atmosphere from the high-pressure to the low-pressure systems, causing these really strong winds.

And so do they normally travel around the equator?

Do we see those sort of equatorial belts more often than other things?

So I'm guessing that we don't have weather stations on these exoplanets.

So how do you know the wind speed on these ultra hot Jupiters, which are, you know, tens, hundreds, maybe thousands of light years away from Earth?

And if you don't live near train tracks like me, it's also the sound of an ambulance's siren, which sounds higher as the ambulance is driving towards you, but lower after it passes you and is driving away.