A space telescope specially designed to detect and observe distant exoplanets has apparently found strong evidence of weather patterns in alien worlds that will now allow astrophysicists to create alien world weather forecasts. 

An international team of scientists from Canada and the United Kingdom has analyzed data from NASA's Kepler Space Telescope and have also idenitifed different weather variations and anomalies on six exoplanets.

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Scientists observed "phase variations" from different parts of these planets when light bounces and reflected off from their host stars which is also similar to Earth's moon cycles going through different phases.

According to Lisa Esteves from the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics of the University of Toronto, the team identified weather patterns of these alien worlds by taking measurements of these changes as the planets orbit their host stars and correctly determining a day-night cycle.

She also adds that the team has traced the cycle in phases when different regions of the planet are illumintaed by its star, from fully lit--daytime to complete darkness--night time. 

Scientists have created "forecasts" from cloudy mornings among four of these exoplanets that ranges from clear yet scorching, extremely hot afternoons on two other planets.

These predictions are also based on the rotations that generate eastward atmospheric winds on the surface of the planets. These would cause the movement of clouds that has formed from the cooler side of the planet towards the daytime side that produces a "cloudy" morning forecast.

Esteves says that these winds also transport these clouds to the daytime side that heat up and dissipate, producing a clear afternoon sky. The winds also push the hot air eastward from the meridian during midday that results in higher temperatures during the afternoon.

Reseacrhers believe that the Kepler telescope is the most ideal instrument to study the different phase variations of extremely distant exoplanets.

According to Ernst de Mooij of the Astrophysics Research Center in Queen's University, Belfast, the detection of light that travelled from more than 100,000 light years away is truly remarkable as these phase cycle variations are also 100,000 times fainter than the host star making Kepler a very powerful telescope.

This study is published in The Astrophysical Journal. 

TagsKepler space telescope, NASA, weather on exoplanets, predict weather distant planets, weather on alien planets