Posted on 02/03/2009 7:18:06 PM PST by SunkenCiv
A distant Jupiter-like planet on an eccentric orbit swings so close to its parent star that its temperature spikes by about 1,260 degrees Fahrenheit (682 degrees Celsius) in only six hours... Then as rapidly as it heats up, the extrasolar planet cools back down after zipping past its star, said lead study author Gregory Laughlin, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The planet's path is unique, Laughlin noted. Most known "hot Jupiters" have tight, roughly circular orbits. They are tidally locked, showing only one face to their stars, just as the moon does to Earth... "But this planet has the most eccentric orbit of any discovered," he said. Its elongated elliptical path makes it impossible for the world to be tidally locked, "so it's guaranteed to bring the planet spinning in every 111 days for a harrowing encounter." ...The exoplanet HD 80606b lies about 190 light-years away, orbiting a star in the constellation Ursa Majoris. It is roughly the same size as Jupiter but has four times the mass. The planet was discovered in 2001 using a method that looks for the wobble in starlight created by a planet's gravity tugging on its host star... Due to its unusual path, HD 80606b spends most of its time about as far from its star as the midway point between Earth and Venus is from the sun. But during a stellar encounter that lasts less than a day, the planet swoops in to about ten times closer than Mercury is to the sun... The team found that the planet's atmosphere jumps from about 980 degrees Fahrenheit (527 degrees Celsius) to almost 2,240 degrees Fahrenheit (1,227 degrees Celsius).
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalgeographic.com ...
Computer simulations based on data from the Spitzer Space Telescope show changes in heat as the distant gas giant planet HD 80606b gets closer to its host star. The odd exoplanet goes through hot flashes, according to a January 2009 paper. Every 111 days it swings so close to its parent star that its temperature spikes by about 1,260 degrees Fahrenheit (682 degrees Celsius) in only six hours. [Picture courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCSC]
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When I saw “hotflashes” I thought this was about our new Secretary of State.
That would be some real Global warming.
Oh! I’ve had a few of those, in the middle of the night! ;)
Nah, only women get those. /rimshot!
Gore’s got a program set up to sell carbon credits to the HD 80606b’ers.
Uh-oh...did we just spot the planet Ploor?
Spitzer Space Telescope Finds Outer Planet
by Rob Adams -- NASA's Spitzer space telescope has detected hot temperatures on an outer planet. Astronomers used infrared technologies to measure heat. The planet is approximately 190 light years from Earth.
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