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    Exoplanet Shines with Glowing Water Atmosphere

    August 4, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Researchers have found that a "hot Jupiter" exoplanet named WASP-121b (left) has a stratosphere hot enough to boil iron. The planet is as close to its host star (right) as possible without the star's gravity ripping the planet apart. Credit: Engine House VFX, At-Bristol Science Centre, University of Exeter

    Researchers have found that a “hot Jupiter” exoplanet named WASP-121b (left) has a stratosphere hot enough to boil iron. The planet is as close to its host star (right) as possible without the star’s gravity ripping the planet apart. Credit: Engine House VFX, At-Bristol Science Centre, University of Exeter

    Distant ‘hot Jupiter’ has a stratosphere hot enough to boil iron. Scientists have found compelling evidence for a stratosphere on an enormous planet outside our solar system. The planet’s stratosphere – a layer of atmosphere where temperature increases with higher altitudes – is hot enough to boil iron. WASP-121b, located ~900 light years from Earth, is a gas giant exoplanet commonly referred to as a “hot Jupiter.”

    An international team of researchers, led by the University of Exeter wit...

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    Extreme Exoplanet: Astronomers discover Alien World Hotter than most Stars

    June 5, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    1.Artist illustration of star KELT-9 and its ultrahot planet KELT-9b. (Robert Hurt / NASA/JPL-Caltech) 2. KELT North telescope in Arizona. (KELT Collaboration)

    1.Artist illustration of star KELT-9 and its ultrahot planet KELT-9b. (Robert Hurt / NASA/JPL-Caltech)
    2. KELT North telescope in Arizona. (KELT Collaboration)

    Imagine a planet like Jupiter zipping around its host star every day and a half, superheated to temperatures hotter than most stars and sporting a giant, glowing gas tail like a comet. That is what an international research team led by astronomers at Ohio State and Vanderbilt universities think they have found orbiting a massive star they have labeled KELT-9, located 650 light years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. With a day-side temperature peaking at 4,600 Kelvin, the newly discovered exoplanet, KELT-9b, is hotter than most stars and only 1,200 Kelvin cooler than our own sun...

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    Likely New Planet may be in Slow Death Spiral

    June 10, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    An artist's impression of likely new giant planet PTFO8-8695 b, which is believed to orbit a star in the constellation Orion every 11 hours. Gravity from the newborn star appears to be pulling away the outer layers of the Jupiter-like planet. Credit: Image by A. Passwaters/Rice University based on original available under CC license at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kepler-70b.png (By Skyhawk92 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons)

    An artist’s impression of likely new giant planet PTFO8-8695 b, which is believed to orbit a star in the constellation Orion every 11 hours. Gravity from the newborn star appears to be pulling away the outer layers of the Jupiter-like planet. Credit: Image by A. Passwaters/Rice University based on original available under CC license at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kepler-70b.png (By Skyhawk92 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons)

    Young star appears to be ripping away layers of close-orbiting ‘hot Jupiter’. Astronomers searching for the galaxy’s youngest planets have found compelling evidence for one unlike any other, a newborn “hot Jupiter” whose outer layers are being torn away by the star it orbits every 11 hours...

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    Astrophysicists find Triple Star system with ‘Hot Jupiter’

    April 9, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Artist's interpretation of a hypothetical moon in orbit around a planet found in a tight-knit triple-star system. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

    Artist’s interpretation of a hypothetical moon in orbit around a planet found in a tight-knit triple-star system. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

    Crisp, clear images of a “hot Jupiter” system captured by a University of Notre Dame physicist were vital in determining that a newly found planet inhabits a 3-star system, a phenomenon documented only a few times before.

    KELT-4Ab is a “hot Jupiter”, a gas giant that orbits extremely close to one of the stars in its solar system. While the KELT, or Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope, detected the likely presence of the planet now called KELT-4Ab about 685 light years from Earth, Crepp was able to capture crisp, clear images of the system, discovering that the planet was in fact a member of a triple star system – one of only a few found to date.

    The ...

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