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Hubble Discovers an Evaporating Planet

Posted by michael on from the sublime-beauty dept.

Licensed2Hack writes "For the first time, astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have observed the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet evaporating off into space. Much of the planet may eventually disappear, leaving only a dense core. The planet is a type of extrasolar planet known as a "hot Jupiter." Spaceflightnow and Nature have the details."

10 of 25 comments (clear)

  1. No suprise here by Tuxinatorium · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What's all the fuss about? That's what you'd expect when a planet is too close and the star reaches the red giant phase.

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    1. Re:No suprise here by Idarubicin · · Score: 3, Insightful
      What's all the fuss about? That's what you'd expect when a planet is too close and the star reaches the red giant phase.

      On the other hand, it's the first time we've actually been able to observe the phenomenon, which makes it interesting in and of itself. It wasn't so long ago that any evidence of any extrasolar planet was big news, just because nobody had been able to find them before.

      It's also a fairly rare event, at least within the volume of space we can readily observe. It's like asking, "What's all the fuss about? A supernova is just what you'd expect when a high-mass star collapses." Yes, it's the expected result, but there is still a good bit of information we can extract that we wouldn't otherwise have access too. It's nice to be able to confirm what happens to planetary systems when stars enter a red giant phase.

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      ~Idarubicin
  2. We're next [?] by Marijuana+al-Shehi · · Score: 3, Funny
    Earth also has an extended atmosphere of escaping hydrogen gas, but the loss rate is much lower.

    Gulp! Would someone please define "much lower" so I can sleep again?

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    1. Re:We're next [?] by Alsee · · Score: 2, Informative

      63% of the atoms in your body are hydrogen.
      Yeah, hydrogen is important lol.

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  3. dry planet? by Joe+the+Lesser · · Score: 4, Funny

    May I recommend core-so-soft lotion? Guaranteed to bring revitilizing atmosphere and vitaman E to itchy and dry celestial bodies.

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  4. WRONG! by Doctor+Fishboy · · Score: 4, Informative

    The star in NOT in a red giant phase - it's still on the Main Sequence for dwarf stars, and is very similiar to our Sun.

    The point is that you can't form a large gas giant so close to a star, it must have formed a long distance out and then 'migrated' to its present position near the star. How that happened will keep astro theorists in grants for a long time ;)

    Also, the size of this gas giant has been noted to be much larger than theoretical models predict, suggesting it is being heated up by the proximity of the parent star - this 'boiling off' of the atmosphere confirms this interpretation.

    Dr Fish

  5. diamond core by barakn · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Let's see what simple economics has to say about it. Let's pretend there is a 1 km diamond asteroid within our own solar system (just to make it plausible to reach it). People consider, briefly, mining it. Then they realize that it would overwhelm the diamond market with shere volume. Diamonds would become cheap even before the ship bearing them landed back on Earth (notice how oil has gotten expensive and the war hasn't started yet?). They couldn't give those damn diamonds away for free.

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    1. Re:diamond core by chrisseaton · · Score: 2, Informative

      "They couldn't give those damn diamonds away for free."

      Diamonds are very useful in industry. Just think - we could all have diamond tipped power tools, so they would be useful, and worth buying whatever. People buy less valuable rocks, don't they.

    2. Re:diamond core by kfx · · Score: 2, Informative

      The diamond market is already overwhelmed by vast volumes of earth diamonds, as diamonds themselves are neither rare or valuable in reality.

      The entire concept of rare and valuable diamonds is a result of the most successful advertising/social engineering campaign ever devised; even now DeBeers and other diamond companies resrict the supply while telling you how rare diamonds are--they've been profiting from this strategy for some 70-80 years now, and they aren't about to stop now...

      The only difference with a diamond asteroid being mined would be that the reality of worthless, plentiful diamonds would become blatantly obvious to the public.

  6. Hide it?? by Scorchio · · Score: 3, Funny

    Is that a two mile wide ex-planetary core diamond in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?