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    Hot Jupiters tagged posts

    Cosmic barbecue: Researchers spot 60 new ‘hot Jupiter’ candidates

    July 8, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The diagram above shows a hot Jupiter at various phases of its orbit. The sizes of the star and planet and the separations between them are to scale for a typical hot Jupiter. The amount of reflected starlight that is observed depends on the planet's position within its orbit and the inclination of the orbit with respect to the observer.

    The diagram above shows a hot Jupiter at various phases of its orbit. The sizes of the star and planet and the separations between them are to scale for a typical hot Jupiter. The amount of reflected starlight that is observed depends on the planet’s position within its orbit and the inclination of the orbit with respect to the observer.

     
    Yale researchers have identified 60 potential new “hot Jupiters” — highly irradiated worlds that glow like coals on a barbecue grill and are found orbiting only 1% of Sun-like stars. Hot Jupiters constitute a class of gas giant planets located so close to their parent stars that they take less than a week to complete an orbit. Second-year Ph.D...
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    Measuring the Magnetic Fields on the Hottest Planets in the galaxy

    June 19, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Measuring the magnetic fields on the hottest planets in the galaxy

    The extreme temperature of these unusual planets … allows the magnetic field to be coupled to the atmospheric winds Credit: Newcastle University

    It is now possible to measure the magnetic field strengths of the hottest planets in the galaxy, new research has shown. Studying ‘hot Jupiters’, experts from Newcastle University, UK, have shown the planets’ magnetic field is responsible for the unusual behaviour of the atmospheric winds which move around it. Instead of moving in an eastward direction as has always been assumed, new observations have shown the winds varied from eastward to westward on the hot planet HAT-P-7b. Using this observation, Dr Tamara Rogers was able to estimate the magnetic field strength of this far-off planet.

    Dr Rogers says this new understanding of the magnetic field...

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    Newborn Giant Planet Grazes its Star

    June 21, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The youngest known hot Jupiter, detected around the star in formation V830 Tau, travels through the star's magnetic web (white and blue lines), making it hard to detect such planets. Credit: Jean-François Donati/CNRS

    The youngest known hot Jupiter, detected around the star in formation V830 Tau, travels through the star’s magnetic web (white and blue lines), making it hard to detect such planets. Credit: Jean-François Donati/CNRS

    For the past 20 years, exoplanets known as ‘hot Jupiters’ have puzzled astronomers. These giant planets orbit 100 times closer to their host stars than Jupiter does to the Sun, which increases their surface temperatures. But how and when in their history did they migrate so close to their star? Now, an international team of astronomers has announced the discovery of a very young hot Jupiter orbiting in the immediate vicinity of a star that is barely 2 million years old – the stellar equivalent of a week-old infant...

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    Unexpected Excess of Giant Planets in Star Cluster Messier 67

    June 17, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This artist's impression shows a hot Jupiter planet orbiting close to one of the stars in the rich old star cluster Messier 67, in the constellation of Cancer (The Crab). Astronomers have found far more planets like this in the cluster than expected. This surprise result was obtained using a number of telescopes and instruments, among them the HARPS spectrograph at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile. The denser environment in a cluster will cause more frequent interactions between planets and nearby stars, which may explain the excess of hot Jupiters. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada

    This artist’s impression shows a hot Jupiter planet orbiting close to one of the stars in the rich old star cluster Messier 67, in the constellation of Cancer (The Crab). Astronomers have found far more planets like this in the cluster than expected. This surprise result was obtained using a number of telescopes and instruments, among them the HARPS spectrograph at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. The denser environment in a cluster will cause more frequent interactions between planets and nearby stars, which may explain the excess of hot Jupiters. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada

    Astronomers have found there are far more planets of the hot Jupiter type than expected in a cluster of stars called Messier 67...

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