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Interesting Planet Apparently Heating Its Star

Posted by michael on from the hand-warmer dept.

T. Panimaesh writes "A Canadian graduate student has discovered a planet which is heating the star it rotates around. 'Evgenya Shkolnik detected a spot on HD179949 that was 700 degrees warmer than the surrounding areas and circled the star at the same pace as the planet's orbit, once every three days. First seen in 2001, it also appeared in two sets of observations in 2002. It is probably not an intrinsic feature of the star, which takes nine days to rotate. Instead, the planet appears to possess a magnetic field that interacts with the star's magnetic field.' The 'roaster' planet being studied is almost as big as Jupiter, a gas giant planet in our solar system, and has 270 times the mass of Earth. It moves at 150 Kilometres per second, completing it's orbit in just 3.5 days."

4 of 59 comments (clear)

  1. Not to flame, but "NO SHIT!" by goldspider · · Score: 1, Insightful
    "The 'roaster' planet being studied is almost as big as Jupiter, a gas giant planet in our solar system"

    If ANYBODY here did not know that... well, kill yourself. You have no right to be anywhere near a computer, let alone a "News for Nerds" site.

    --
    "Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
    1. Re:Not to flame, but "NO SHIT!" by Randolpho · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Actually, I'm surprised it's almost as big as Jupiter.

      It should probably be much much larger.

      --
      "Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
      -Marilyn Manson
  2. Grav/Mag effects on solar convection by redelm · · Score: 3, Insightful
    The title is a misnomer. I very much doubt the planet is heating it's star or it would be losing energy and be very unstable.

    Most likely, either tidal or mag.field effects are changing the convection patterns inside the star. All stars are _much_ hotter in the core than on the surface, it wouldn't take much to influence these boundary-condition dependant internal convective flows.

  3. Of Course it is going to affect the star by Slick_Snake · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Think how close the planet must be to the star to make a complete rotation in 3.5 days.
    A year on Mercury takes 87.97 Earth days; it takes 87.97 Earth days for Mercury to orbit the sun once.

    Logicly the planet must be closer much closer than Mercury is to our Sun. I could just be a phenomenon similar to the tides caused by the moon.