Suicidal Planet

Damocles

Damocles

Accedo!
Staff member
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090826/ap_on_sc/us_sci_suicidal_planet

Suicidal planet seems on death spiral into star

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein, Ap Science Writer – Wed Aug 26, 1:00 pm ET

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's a slow death. The planet WASP-18b has maybe a million years to live, said planet discoverer Coel Hellier, a professor of astrophysics at the Keele University in England. Hellier's report on the suicidal planet is in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

"It's causing its own destruction by creating these tides," Hellier said.

More at link...
 
Thorn said:
I saw this today. Fascinating. I want that picture!
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capt.8f1268cbc799c09939f0387aa0223896.jpeg


Right click then "save as", name it what you want...
 
We aren't going to be able to take pictures of exoplanets for another fifty or so years (probably longer than that), or until congress decides to appropriate tens or hundreds of billions of dollars to build a telescope that powerful with current technology.
 
It's amazing the variations in different solar systems we're finding. We expected all the other solar systems to be nice and orderly like ours, but weird solar systems seem to be the norm. I can hardly wait until they finally get a telescope capable of detecting earth-size and smaller planets regularly.
 
911America4EVER; said:
We expected all the other solar systems to be nice and orderly like ours, but weird solar systems seem to be the norm.
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:rolleyes:

So what you are saying is, contrary to the ENTIRETY of the universe, our solar system just magically fell into place! Our solar system is perfectly constructed, due to some unknown physics, that hasn't been seen ANYWHERE ELSE, all due to some RANDOM MYSTICAL CHANCE! A fluke of nature. If that isn't a fairy tale I don't know what is!
 
Daxie said:
:rolleyes:

So what you are saying is, contrary to the ENTIRETY of the universe, our solar system just magically fell into place! Our solar system is perfectly constructed, due to some unknown physics, that hasn't been seen ANYWHERE ELSE, all due to some RANDOM MYSTICAL CHANCE! A fluke of nature. If that isn't a fairy tale I don't know what is!
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What?

Oh, lol, daxie. I thought dixie was actually saying this.

Our solar system really wouldn't be special if we keep on finding solar systems like this, besides the fact that we live here. It would be equally weird to all the others.
 
911America4EVER said:
It's amazing the variations in different solar systems we're finding. We expected all the other solar systems to be nice and orderly like ours, but weird solar systems seem to be the norm. I can hardly wait until they finally get a telescope capable of detecting earth-size and smaller planets regularly.
Click to expand...
The Universe is one of my favorite programs. It is so fascinating!
 
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