Astrophysicists Find "Impossible" Planet

SpuriousLogic writes "Scientists have discovered a planet that shouldn't exist. The finding, they say, could alter our understanding of orbital dynamics, a field considered pretty well settled since the time of astronomer Johannes Kepler 400 years ago. The planet is known as a 'hot Jupiter,' a gas giant orbiting the star Wasp-18, about 330 light years from Earth. The planet, Wasp-18b, is so close to the star that it completes a full orbit (its "year") in less than an Earth day, according to the research, which was published in the journal Nature. Of the more than 370 exoplanets — planets orbiting stars other than our sun — discovered so far, this is just the second with such a close orbit. The problem is that a planet that close should be consumed by its parent star in less than a million years, say the authors at Keele University in England. The star Wasp-18 is believed to be about a billion years old, and since stars and the planets around them are thought to form at the same time, Wasp-18b should have been reduced to cinders ages ago."

Comments

Re:Maybe the measurements are wrong or incomplete

[Colonel Korn]

How presumptuous is it for these physicists to make claims about exoplanets, when no one has been able to visit them to confirm anything that our measurements are telling us *might* be out there? How confident is astrophysics in what they're seeing and interpreting?

The error bars are published along with the data, you know. There's no presumption here. These astronomers are presenting data and then interpreting the results in order to suggest probably implications.

Why is it that every "scientists find something new and try to understand it" article on Slashdot prompts comments that get modded up (why is the parent +4 insightful?!) for complaining that arrogant scientists are making stuff up and leaping to conclusions?

Re:Maybe the measurements are wrong or incomplete

[MollyB]

from TFA:

A second possibility is that the planet hasn't been in its current position very long, Hellier said. Wasp-18b could have spiraled inward to its current position over millions of years. It may have been bumped out of its original orbit by another planet, for example.

"However, that does not solve the problem," Hellier said, because the planet's lifetime should still be very short and it would be very unlikely for his team to find it where it did.

hth

Re:Maybe the measurements are wrong or incomplete

[Clandestine_Blaze]

This story appeared in USA Today yesterday. From the article:

Astronomers have found what appears to be a gigantic suicidal planet.

The odd, fiery planet is so close to its star and so large that it is triggering tremendous plasma tides on the star. Those powerful tides are in turn warping the planet's zippy less-than-a-day orbit around its star.

The result: an ever-closer tango of death, with the planet eventually spiraling into the star.

It is a slow death. The planet WASP-18b has maybe a million years to live, said planet discoverer Coel Hellier, a professor of astrophysics at Keele University in England. Hellier's report on the suicidal planet is in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

"It's causing its own destruction by creating these tides," Hellier said.

Putting aside the sensationalist journalism (calling it a "suicidal planet"), it appears that its proximity to its star is causing plasma tides on the star (similar to the tides we have here on Earth due to the Moon), and those tides are warping the planets orbit.