There are other planets experiencing heat waves.

A group of scientists led by James O'Donoghue, a planetary scientist at the Japanese Aeronautical Exploration Agency, were shocked to discover a heat wave in Jupiter's atmosphere.

The heat wave raced from the gas giant's poles to the equator at a speed of over 600 mph.

Jupiter experiences extreme temperatures even when there is no heat waves. It only gets four percent of the sun's warming rays, which suggests that it would be a lot cooler.

Estimates show that Jupiter's upper atmosphere should be a chilly -99 degrees. According to observations, its upper atmosphere is the same temperature as Earth's.

Astronomers have been puzzled by this discrepancy since the 1970s, but they might be getting closer to an answer.

At this year's Europlanet Science Congress, O'Donoghue and his colleagues presented their latest theory as to what may have caused Jupiter's hot weather.

Auroras are permanent in Jupiter's atmosphere and occur only during solar wind activity.

The regions around Jupiter's poles can get hot from the Auroras. The wind pushes the heat around the planet's surface.

The paper describing the massive "high-temperature planetary-scale structure" was published in the journal Nature.

O'Donoghue said the heat wave was likely the result of a large injection of energy to the polar region. This is the first time we've seen it on another planet.

He said that the heat waves were caused by the solar wind.

Jupiter may not be the only planet feeling the heat.

Based on the amount of sunlight they receive, O'Donoghue said, "Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are all warmer than expected." There is evidence that the distribution of heat occurs at Saturn, but we don't know if it also happens at other planets.

The evolution of Jupiter's atmosphere could be affected by the Sun's influence on other planets in our solar system.

There is more on Jupiter.