Hottest Planet Ever Discovered

[n2doc]

By Clara Moskowitz, Staff Writer
posted: 16 October 2008 02:23 pm ET

In the hunt for extrasolar planets, a new find is shattering records left and right.

A planet called WASP-12b is the hottest planet ever discovered (about 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2,200 degrees Celsius), and orbits its star faster and closer in than any other known world.

This sizzling monster whips its way around its parent star about once a day (for comparison, the fastest-circling planet in the solar system, Mercury, orbits the sun once every 88 days).

To make such swift progress, the planet circles extremely close-in to its star — about 2 percent of the distance from the Earth to the sun, in fact, or 2 million miles (3.4 million kilometers).

"WASP-12b is incredibly interesting, because we're at a stage in the study of exoplanets where we're finding new examples all the time," said Don Pollacco of Queen's University in Northern Ireland, who is a project scientist for the SuperWASP (Super Wide Angle Search for Planets) project that discovered WASp-12b. "It was exciting because it was the shortest period and the hottest planet, but I suspect there are even shorter period planets, and hotter planets to come."

WASP-12b is a gaseous planet, about 1.5 times the mass of Jupiter, and almost twice the size.

more:

http://www.livescience.com/space/hottest-planet.html

[mike_c]

1. how does a gas giant keep its integrity that close to its primary...?

I would think the stellar wind alone would strip it down to bare rock pretty soon. And the tidal stress! Wow. That just sounds so counter-intuitive!

[n2doc]

2. I have no idea

Maybe it captures enough mass from the primary to offset? Space is strange.....

[BlueJazz]

3. Must be a Fairly young system...????

[anigbrowl]

4. Maybe it has a magnetosphere

But yes, that's an interesting question. Definitely on my list of holiday destinations to avoid.

[electron_blue]

5. The self-gravity is high enough to stabilize it, at least in the short term.

Probably more than a few of these hot (or super hot) Jupiters are losing bits of their atmosphere, however.