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Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope to study the atmospheres of ten hot, Jupiter-sized exoplanets in detail, the largest number of such planets ever studied. The team was able to discover why some of these worlds seem to have less water than expected — a long-standing mystery. The results are published in Nature.

To date, astronomers have discovered nearly 2000 planets orbiting other stars. Some of these planets are known as hot Jupiters, hot, gaseous planets with characteristics similar to those of Jupiter. They orbit very close to their stars, making their surface hot, and the planets tricky to study in detail without being overwhelmed by bright starlight.

Due to this difficulty, Hubble has only explored a handful of hot Jupiters in the past, across a limited wavelength range. These initial studies have found several planets to hold less water than expected opo1436a , opo1354a .

Now, an international team of astronomers has tackled the problem by making the largest ever study of hot Jupiters, exploring and comparing ten such planets in a bid to understand their atmospheres [1]. Only three of these planetary atmospheres had previously been studied in detail; this new sample forms the largest ever spectroscopic catalogue of exoplanet atmospheres.

The team used multiple observations from both the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. Using the power of both telescopes allowed the team to study the planets, which are of various masses, sizes, and temperatures, across an unprecedented range of wavelengths [2].

“I’m really excited to finally ‘see’ this wide group of planets together, as this is the first time we’ve had sufficient wavelength coverage to be able to compare multiple features from one planet to another,” says David Sing of the University of Exeter, UK, lead author of the new paper. “We found the planetary atmospheres to be much more diverse than we expected.”

All of the planets have a favourable orbit that brings them between their parent star and Earth. As the exoplanet passes in front of its host star, as seen from Earth, some of this starlight travels through the planet’s outer atmosphere. “The atmosphere leaves its unique fingerprint on the starlight, which we can study when the light reaches us,” explains co-author Hannah Wakeford, now at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, USA.

These fingerprints allowed the team to extract the signatures from various elements and molecules — including water — and to distinguish between cloudy and cloud-free exoplanets, a property that could explain the missing water mystery.

The team’s models revealed that, while apparently cloud-free exoplanets showed strong signs of water, the atmospheres of those hot Jupiters with faint water signals also contained clouds and haze — both of which are known to hide water from view. Mystery solved!

“The alternative to this is that planets form in an environment deprived of water — but this would require us to completely rethink our current theories of how planets are born,” explained co-author Jonathan Fortney of the University of California, Santa Cruz, USA. “Our results have ruled out the dry scenario, and strongly suggest that it’s simply clouds hiding the water from prying eyes.”

The study of exoplanetary atmospheres is currently in its infancy, with only a handful of observations taken so far. Hubble’s successor, the James Webb Space Telescope , will open a new infrared window on the study of exoplanets and their atmospheres.

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Ash emissions of varying intensity continue from the volcano, producing a plume that rises approx. 500-1500 m above the crater.

It seems that the emissions are generated by mild explosive activity still relatively deep inside the crater. So far, no images of incandescent ejecta on or outside the crater have appeared, but this might occur soon if activity increases.

According to VSI, volcanic tremor has been elevated with a tendency to increase during the past days.

Access to the volcano remains restricted, as the caldera floor around Bromo (and the cone itself, of course) are now off-limits.

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A volcano in Russia’s Kamchatka region has spewed ashes, covering a local village with a thin layer of soot, the Emergency Situations Ministry said on Wednesday, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

The ash cloud from the Shiveluch Volcano reached 6,500 meters above sea level, the ministry said in a statement, RIA Novosti reported. The volcano is 3,283 meters high.

Winds carried ashes nearly 50 kilometers east of the volcano, reaching the village of Ust-Kamchatsk, where a 1-millimeter layer of ash fallout was registered, the report said.

The incident presented no hazards to local residents’ health, the report said.

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A freak thunderstorm and tornado has smashed Sydney ‘like a freight train’, ripping roofs off houses, blasting open office windows and flipping trucks on their sides with the strongest winds ever recorded in the state.

Kurnell, a Sutherland Shire suburb, was ground zero for the superstorm with tornado winds of 213km/h tearing through the area, the monster gale lifting trees by their roots and smashing some into homes.

On Wednesday afternoon, Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) announced on Twitter that the gusts were the strongest ever recorded by their equipment in NSW.
The city’s desalination plant in Kurnell was damaged with remnants of its insulation bats and roof sheeting caught in trees and wetlands, hundreds of metres from where they once were.

Hailstones battered the area and smashed car windscreens, and paramedics have treated two people for shock and one with head injury at an address near Sir Joseph Banks Drive.

Riot Squad police were helping distraught locals return to their damaged properties across the region. The entire suburb is without power and sewerage, and police say that may last until Thursday morning.

Emergency services have taken hundreds of calls and there are reports of multiple building collapses and even a truck tipped over in the wild winds.

Two of the worst hit areas by the tornado in Kurnell were Tasman and Bridges Streets.

One local, Frank Partlic, had just sold his home at 26 Tasman Street before it met with destruction.

It sold for a record $1.15million at auction on Tuesday afternoon – only for the tornado to destroy his renovated home of 17 years with six-months of pre-sale work behind it.

All that’s left is the walls, every room is inundated with roofing, sodden insulation and broken timber.

‘When it hit it was heavy rain and then this sheet of white like a fog came down,’ Mr Partlic told Daily Mail Australia.

‘Then it started, things coming off the roof, like a domino effect, and I had a look outside wondering where my daughter was and this huge black thing was flying through the air at me so I slammed the door.’

It was a trampoline flying at him from across the road.

‘I ran to the back because the roof started collapsing and when the back corner caved in, I tried to grab my wallet and iPad and find somewhere safe.
‘It went through and down to the gully and then turned back around and came again, like it was chasing me.’

Shane Hendricks, 28, was recovering at home from a broken rib with partner Ellie Warner when it swept in and ripped apart their home at 16 Tasman Street.
‘I had no idea, no warning,’ he told Daily Mail Australia.

‘It was swirling and came in hard ripping everything up.’

They took refuge in a bedroom with all their pets, including a horse, saving dozens of birds from a destroyed aviary, 12 dogs, guinea pigs and rabbits.

Natalie and Paul Hennessy on Bridges Street arrived home to find their home in tatters, holes in the roof, sodden carpets with broken glass and timber strewn through the rooms.

Other residents walked through the streets shell-shocked, stunned at the damage which had been wrought in such a short time.

‘It’s everything we worked up to, everything’s gone,’ Mrs Hennessy cried.

‘The ceilings have caved in, even the floors have collapsed, everything.

‘It’s everything we ever wanted – we had a brand new bathroom now look at it.

‘We were going to have Christmas here with the whole family, now where will we go?’

At one office complex in Kurnell the storm blasted the windows open, scattering files and trashing the room.

‘It was the winds — it sucked the windows out,’ worker Renee Celarc told Daily Mail Australia. ‘It was scary… we were all inside at the time.’

Local man Daniel Hipwell, who was working on a site in Green Hills in Cronulla said he and his colleagues watched the storm roll in.

‘Our blokes were all stuck in the machinery and had to stick it out,’ Mr Hipwell told Daily Mail Australia.

He said he heard reports that people in Kurnell are stuck in buildings which collapsed during the tornado, and a factory had its roof completely ripped off.

‘Some of us tried to head in to see if we could help… [but] they’ve closed the roads off and there’s a lot of emergency response, police and ambulances’ he said.

The rain soon let up in Kurnell, but residents were left stranded on Captain Cook Drive as police block all entrances to the site of a freak tornado.

Peter Myers, a Sutherland shire resident, said his daughters front windows ‘blew straight in’ on her and her three-month-old child.

The woman and her child have been evacuated along with other residents to the rural fire service headquarters in Martin Park.

Mr Myers said his neighbour’s boat flew onto his brand new car during the storm, destroying it.

It was a common experience.

‘My son had a boat parked in the driveway, and his boat disappeared – we found it on the other side of the road,’ said Kurnell resident Dianne Hennessy.

‘My son hasn’t been able to get home because he’s been at work. This is his house – he doesn’t even know what he’s coming home to.’

Roads to Kurnell are not expected to reopen until tonight, as powerlines and trees litter the road. Ausgrid and emergency services vehicles are still entering the area.

The desalination plant in Kurnell was evacuated after reportedly sustaining significant damage and workers were also cleared out of the Caltex refinery.

A Caltex spokeswoman said workers at the Kurnell refinery were evacuated as a safety precaution and there were no oil spills. She said the company was not aware of any injuries at the facility.

A 40-year-old man suffered head injuries in Kurnell and ambulance NSW said officers treated two other people.

They were all transferred to Sutherland Hospital in a stable condition.

There was chaos in the city’s east, too. Bondi Junction shopping centre was evacuated after parts of a roof collapsed. A woman, thought to be in her 60s, was taken to St Vincent’s Hospital in a stable condition for unknown trauma.

A balcony in Maroubra in Sydney’s eastern suburbs collapsed and the roof of a unit was damaged as storms travelled north.

Beth, who lives and works in Cronulla in the city’s south, said ‘golf ball-size hail’ fell on St Andrew’s Anglican Church.

‘We had some brown-outs, lots of thunder and lightning, and some large hail,’ she said.

‘The wind was strong and it was hitting our glass windows. I have a big dint in the front of my car.’

Sydney Airport was closely monitoring the storm activity with passengers being advised to check flight details with their airlines, an airport spokeswoman said.

Qantas has delayed some flights until the storm clears up.

BOM originally said severe thunderstorms would continue into the night with destructive winds, large hailstorms and very heavy rainfall.

But at around 5.30pm, the severe weather warning was cancelled, with the destructive winds moving offshore.

‘The immediate threat of severe thunderstorms has passed, but the situation will continue to be monitored and further warnings will be issued if necessary,’ BOM said in a statement of Sydney, Newcastle, Wollongong and surrounding areas.

However, shortly after 7pm, a severe thunderstorm warning was issued for the North West Slopes and Plains, Northern Tablelands and parts of the Northern Rivers, Mid North Coast, Central West Slopes and Plains and Upper Western Districts.

It warned of large hailstorms, heavy rainfall, flash flooding and damaging winds over the next few hours for Grafton, Coffs Harbour, Armidale, Tamworth, Moree and Lightning Ridge.

Meanwhile, it was fine and sunny in Melbourne on Wednesday with a maximum of 29 degrees. The city is expected to enjoy its first 40-degree December day since 2010 this weekend ahead of a four-day heatwave.

South Australia is also currently experiencing extremely warm weather – so hot in fact that international arrivals are being warned about the extreme heat and how to deal with it.

And across the pond it was set to swelter in parts of New Zealand, with temperatures in Christchurch forecast to hit a balmy 33 degrees.

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A powerful late-autumn storm dumped up to 24 inches of snow in the Colorado mountains on Tuesday before barreling onto the plains, prompting airlines to cancel about 500 flights at the Denver airport and leaving hundreds of miles of highways slippery with snow and ice.

Western Storms

The snow tapered off Tuesday afternoon as the storm moved northeast, leaving behind drifts up to four feet high.

“It’s going to be western Nebraska’s turn next,” National Weather Service meteorologist Todd Dankers said. “It’s going to end up eventually in Minnesota.”

It was the first big storm of the season for most of Colorado and Utah. Schools closed in some towns in at least four states.

Some flights at Denver International Airport were more than four hours late after at least seven inches of snow fell there, airport officials said.

More than 600 miles of Colorado Interstate highways were snowpacked or icy, and gusts as strong as 58 mph left near-whiteout conditions in isolated areas of Colorado’s eastern plains, Dankers said. Few highways were closed, however.

A snowplow slipped off a highway in the foothills west of Boulder early Tuesday and landed up-side-down in a creek, but the driver wasn’t injured.

The accident happened at about 4:30 a.m. in Boulder Canyon, said Amy Ford, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation. Nothing spilled from the truck into the creek, she said. The cause of the accident was under investigation.

The wind piled up drifts three to four feet deep in the small northeastern Colorado town of Merino. Schools and the town offices were closed but some businesses opened as usual.

“I think we’re just more used to it,” said Jada Gettman, owner of Grandpa’s restaurant in Merino, which was open. “The snowing and blowing doesn’t affect us as much.”

About 24 inches of snow fell in the west-central mountains near McClure Pass, the National Weather Service said.

The town of Larkspur, in the foothills north of Colorado Springs, reported 17 inches of snow, and cities along the north-south Interstate 25 corridor reported up to a foot. Farther east, the Colorado plains received four to eight inches of snow.

The storm struck Utah before moving into Colorado, leaving about a foot of snow in the Salt Lake City area and more than two feet in other places.

The Utah Highway Patrol worked more than 400 accidents over the last two days as people struggled to get to work and school on icy, snow-packed roads.

The storm left a foot of snow in parts of Wyoming and Montana, leaving icy highways. School kids in Billings, Montana, the state’s largest city, got their first snow day in more than 25 years.

Parts of Interstates 25 and 80 were closed in Wyoming, but travel was a lot more fun in Yellowstone National Park, where recent snow allowed the park to start welcoming snowmobile and tank-like snowcoach traffic.

Elsewhere, rain and snow pushed into New England after an unseasonably warm and dry weekend. Sherman, Maine, reported six inches of snow at midday Tuesday.

Much of the West Coast was dry with below-average temperatures. The Tuesday morning low was -13 degrees in Bridgeport, California, and 6 degrees in Big Bear City, California.