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NASA's Hubble Captures Blistering Pitch-Black Planet (scienmag.com)

schwit1 writes: NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has observed a planet outside our solar system that looks as black as fresh asphalt because it eats light rather than reflecting it back into space. This light-eating prowess is due to the planet's unique capability to trap at least 94 percent of the visible starlight falling into its atmosphere. The oddball exoplanet, called WASP-12b, is one of a class of so-called "hot Jupiters," gigantic, gaseous planets that orbit very close to their host star and are heated to extreme temperatures. The planet's atmosphere is so hot that most molecules are unable to survive on the blistering day side of the planet, where the temperature is 4,600 degrees Fahrenheit. Therefore, clouds probably cannot form to reflect light back into space. Instead, incoming light penetrates deep into the planet's atmosphere where it is absorbed by hydrogen atoms and converted to heat energy. "We did not expect to find such a dark exoplanet," said Taylor Bell of McGill University and the Institute for Research on Exoplanets in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, lead researcher of the Hubble study. "Most hot Jupiters reflect about 40 percent of starlight."

7 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Re:what? by sysrammer · · Score: 4, Funny

    What's that in proper units?

    Fourteen parsecs.

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  2. Hot Jupiter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    nonsense, they found Disaster Area's spaceship!

    "It was a ship of classic, simple design, like a flattened salmon, twenty yards long, very clean, very sleek. There was just one remarkable thing about it.

    "It's so ... black!" said Ford Prefect, "you can hardly make out its shape ... light just seems to fall into it!"

    Zaphod said nothing. He had simply fallen in love.

    The blackness of it was so extreme that it was almost impossible to tell how close you were standing to it."

  3. Re:what? by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 4, Funny

    I made it in 13. But I met a guy once who claimed to make it in 12. He was a bit of a braggart though, not sure if I trust him.

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  4. We're doomed by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 3, Funny

    NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has observed a planet outside our solar system that looks as black as fresh asphalt because it eats light rather than reflecting it back into space.

    Priest: Imagine for a moment that this thing is not anything that can be identified because it prefers not to be. Wherever there is life, it brings death, because it is evil, absolute evil.

    President: One more reason to shoot first.

    Priest: Evil begets evil, Mr. President. Shooting will only make it stronger.

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  5. Re:Fahrenheit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Everyone in the world except north america uses C and K.

    I use Celsius, and I live in North America. Please do not lump us into the area controlled by Trump, eh?

    -- A concerned citizen of the northern parts of North America.

  6. Re:Fahrenheit, WTF??? by cellocgw · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm pretty sure the original article is in C

    Better that than in JavaScript

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  7. Re:For everyone nonamerican by powerlord · · Score: 4, Funny

    How many Libraries of Congress is that?

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