Beyond our solar system, a bizarre world is raging with unimaginable winds. WASP-127b is a gas giant located over 500 light-years away from the Earth. It is unlike anything astronomers have seen before.

Here on Earth, the fastest puff of wind on record was a blustery 407 kilometers (253 miles) per hour, measured on Australia's Barrow Island in 1996. Neptune has the highest wind speeds in our Solar System, but even its 1,770 kilometer-per-hour high-altitude currents feel more like a mild breeze by comparison.

In Earth's upper atmosphere, a fast-moving band of air called the jet stream blows with winds of more than 275 miles (442 km) per hour, but they are not the strongest in our solar system. The comparable high-altitude winds on Neptune reach about 1,

Astronomers have uncovered one of the most extraordinary atmospheric phenomena ever observed on an exoplanet. Using the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, researchers have measured supersonic winds racing around the equator of the distant gas giant WASP-127b.