Free Republic

WASHINGTON — Astronomers have found what appears to be a gigantic suicidal planet. The odd, fiery planet is so close to its star and so large that it is triggering tremendous plasma tides on the star. Those powerful tides are in turn warping the planet's zippy less-than-a-day orbit around its star. The result: an ever-closer tango of death, with the planet eventually spiraling into the star. It is a slow death. The planet WASP-18b has maybe a million years to live, said planet discoverer Coel Hellier, a professor of astrophysics at Keele University in England. Hellier's report on the suicidal...

Astronomers using robotic cameras - including some in Australia - say they have found 10 new planets outside our solar system, while a second team says they have found the youngest planet yet. The findings add to a growing list of more than 270 so-called extrasolar planets, they told a meeting of astronomers in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The robot team is called "SuperWASP," for Wide Area Search for Planets, and the cameras look for planets transiting, or crossing in front of, their stars. The light from the sun fades just slightly when this happens, and astronomers can extrapolate the size...