Hubble catches planet being devoured by its star

derby378

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Tue May-25-10 08:39 AM
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Hubble catches planet being devoured by its star

Source: AFP

The Hubble space telescope has discovered a planet in our galaxy in the process of being devoured by the star that it orbits, according to a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The doomed planet, dubbed WASP-12b, has the highest known surface temperature of any planet in the Milky Way -- around 1,500 degrees Celsius (2,800 degrees Fahrenheit).

...

Discovered in 2008, WASP-12b is located about 600 light-years from Earth in the Auriga Constellation and is more than 300 times the size of Earth.

It also has a mass 40-percent greater than that of Jupiter, the biggest planet in our solar system.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100524/sc_afp/usscienceastronomy

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Soylent Brice

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Tue May-25-10 09:10 AM
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1. wicked awesome.

K&R

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Rebubula

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Tue May-25-10 09:19 AM
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2. Eventually...

...this (or something similarly as destructive) is the fate for Earth.

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derby378

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Tue May-25-10 03:07 PM
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3. The mechanism is a little different

The sun, after another 5 billion years, will start running out of fuel and inflate in size as it starts burning helium instead of hydrogen for fuel. Mercury and Venus will surely be swallowed up, and if Earth manages to survive being devoured by the sun, it will instead become the new Mercury, constantly blasted by the fierce heat from the red giant.

This exoplanet, on the other hand, looks like its orbit has brought it too close to its parent star, and it is slowly being pulled apart.

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