[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Why doesn't the gas giant boil away? Or is its mass sufficient to keep itself together? Or is the star cold (relative to the Sun)?

[SunkenCiv]

here's the code for changing the font, in this case, Comic Sans MS, a controversial font that I've liked since I saw Hankster (Hank Zevallos) use it on The Globe, a now-defunct forum system that was also one of those Internet bubble millionaire stocks. :') Anyway:

<font face="comic sans ms"></font>

regarding this:

Why doesn't the gas giant boil away? Or is its mass sufficient to keep itself together? Or is the star cold (relative to the Sun)?

The star is thought to be colder (that was in the article above, but I may have edited that out), however the answer to the question is, either the planet is a relatively new acquisition (captured from an encounter), or is a blob of crap that came up out of the star, or it's been migrating inward for a long while due to various possibilities, including retrograde motion around the parent star.

Due to frame dragging (a predicted phenomenon derived from Einstein's Fear of Relatives), the planet's time frame may be different, but even if valid, this wouldn't help these "hot Jupiters" because the effect is very small.

In any case, it was fortuitously discovered near its terminal point. It may be that these types of planets about to be gulped down are not very common, and are overrepresented in the extrasolar planets discovered so far, simply because they are easier to spot. That is probably correct IMHO.