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Record-Breaking Exoplanet With Insanely Extreme Orbit Is Totally Doomed - ScienceAlert

Record-Breaking Exoplanet With Insanely Extreme Orbit Is Totally Doomed - ScienceAlert

Record-Breaking Exoplanet With Insanely Extreme Orbit Is Totally Doomed - ScienceAlert
Nov 25, 2021 1 min, 8 secs

Oh, and it has a death wish: It's on such a close orbit with its host star that it whirls around once every 16 hours.

That's the closest orbit we've ever discovered for a gas giant, so close that it is spiraling ever closer to the star on a trajectory of doom, with half of it scorched by its host star's burning heat.

Astronomers hope it can tell us more about how these extreme exoplanets come to exist, as well as the interactions between a star and a perilously closely orbiting exoplanet.

Unlike Jupiter, however, they orbit their host star incredibly closely, on orbits of fewer than 10 days (for comparison, Jupiter's orbital period is a rather more sedate 12 years). At such close distances, these exoplanets are very hot indeed, often evaporating under the intense heat.

The amount by which the light of the star dips can tell us the size of the orbiting body.

TOI 2109b is orbiting a yellow-white star 1.7 times the size and 1.4 times the mass of the Sun, around 855 light-years away. TOI 2109b and its sun are so close that the distance between them is around just 2.4 million kilometers (1.5 million miles).

At such close proximity, the exoplanet is likely tidally locked to its host star, with one side permanently facing the star?

That's the fastest inspiral rate of any hot Jupiter we've discovered to date

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