Alien Weather

At the equator of a planet known as HD 189733b, the weather forecast might go something like this: Hazy skies with a chance of showers of molten glass, high temperatures of almost 2,000 degrees, and winds from the west at more than 5,000 miles per hour.
That’s the picture pieced together from more than a decade of observations of the planet — a giant ball of gas just a couple of million miles from its parent star.
It’s one of several astronomical bodies beyond the solar system on which scientists have seen evidence of weather — winds, clouds, or both. Some of these objects are planets. Others are brown dwarfs — objects that are more massive than planets, but not big enough to shine as stars. And at least one is an actual star — a weak stellar ember that’s far fainter and cooler than the Sun.
The weather on HD 189733b was revealed by space telescopes. As the planet passes in front of its star, starlight filters through the planet’s atmosphere. That adds the “fingerprint” of the atmosphe