Stellar Blast Boils Away Some of a Planet's Atmosphere

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Stellar Blast Boils Away Some of a Planet's Atmosphere

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday June 28, 2012 @07:50AM from the cloudy-with-a-chance-of-destruction dept.

The Bad Astronomer writes "Using a combination of Hubble and Swift observations, astronomers have apparently witnessed some of a planet's atmosphere being peeled away by a powerful stellar blast. HD 189733b orbits its star just 4 million km from the surface, and a few hours after Swift detected a big X-ray flare from the star, Hubble data revealed a big jump in hydrogen absorption as the planet transited the star. This indicates the planet's atmosphere was blasted off by the flare to the tune of a thousand tons of hydrogen per second. The planet is so hot it probably already loses a substantial amount of air to space all the time, but this spike is the first time a change in an exoplanet's atmosphere has been detected."

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4 mil km by SJHillman · 2012-06-28 07:54 · Score: 4, Funny

4 million km is roughly 0.02 AU or 1/10th the mean distance of Mercury from the Sun
It someone got that close to me, I'd let them have it too.
1. Re:4 mil km by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-28 08:27 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Lots of us are a whole lot closer to you than that.
2. Re:4 mil km by HapSlappy_2222 · 2012-06-28 08:57 · Score: 2
  
  Sounds like you'd better duck then, or he's gonna blast the hydrogen right off your face.
3. Re:4 mil km by Tarlus · 2012-06-28 09:27 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  I look forward to the day when we have lavish restaurants stationed nearby so that we can watch while we dine.
  
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4. Re:4 mil km by uigrad_2000 · 2012-06-28 10:08 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I wonder if I'd ever be able to afford such a restaurant. Wait, I just found a penny.
  
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Re:Athmosphere or air? by i+kan+reed · 2012-06-28 07:56 · Score: 3, Funny

I think it's all just hot air.
It could happen here by sl4shd0rk · 2012-06-28 08:07 · Score: 4, Informative

When stars go supernova, they sometimes release large Gamma Ray Bursts which are far more devastating to an atmosphere than X-rays. GRBs can cover great distances too. Currently a star named WR 104 which is 8000 light years from earth seems to be pointing straight at us. If it goes GRB when it explodes, we may be in for trouble. There's enough energy there (even at that insance distance) to cause wide spread extinction on the planet.
Interestingly enough, it may have already happened but the light from it, and/or the GRB, hasn't gotten here yet.
http://www.space.com/5081-real-death-star-strike-earth.html

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1. Re:It could happen here by SJHillman · 2012-06-28 08:16 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I've heard theories that one of the Earth's mass extinction events may have been caused by a glancing blow from a GRB. The side facing away from the GRB would be mostly fine in the short term, but the boiling of the oceans on the other side would have much longer term implications for the entire planet.
2. Re:It could happen here by rleibman · 2012-06-28 08:20 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  (from wikipedia) Newer spectroscopic data suggest that WR 104's rotational axis is more likely angled 30–40 from Earth... so we're ok, something else will kill us.
3. Re:It could happen here by steelfood · 2012-06-28 10:41 · Score: 2
  
  It'll arrive this year on December 21st.
  
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Re:Expansion by SJHillman · 2012-06-28 08:17 · Score: 2

Just means this one comes pre-nuked-from-orbit so we can move right in.
Re:Oh, that is what it was. by EdIII · 2012-06-28 16:00 · Score: 2

You know that is probably the single greatest benefit of being a Jedi. You could pass the nastiest gas in a crowded elevator (turbo lift, whatever) and just wave your hands and nobody would remember you did it.