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 it was a "normal" planet...

[mcgrew]

I never liked wasps anyway.

Racist!

Re:alternatively

[Matje]

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How do you do, I see you've met my faithful

[leftie]

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ON COCAINE!
by the way I look,
SAME THING.
don't judge a book by it's cover. I'm not much of a man by the light of day, but by night I'm one
SICK MOTHERFUCKER.
hell of a lover. I'm just a sweet Transvestite, from Transsexual, Transylvania. Let me show you around, maybe play you a sound. You look like you're both pretty groovy. Or if you want something visual, that's not too abysmal, we could take in an old
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Steve Reeves' movie...