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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."

10 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Fahrenheit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously?

    https://www.nasa.gov/offices/oce/functions/standards/isu.html

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

    What's that in proper units?

    Fourteen parsecs.

    --
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  3. For everyone nonamerican by kristofer.vesi · · Score: 4, Informative

    4600ÂF = 2540ÂC

    1. Re:For everyone nonamerican by Ogive17 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You could have just said "fucking hot".. as if 2540C really provides any more meaningful a reference point as 4600F

      --
      "Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
    2. Re:For everyone nonamerican by stealth_finger · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You could have just said "fucking hot".. as if 2540C really provides any more meaningful a reference point as 4600F

      It should be related to what it can melt. So like, 1.5 steels or .8ish tungsten.

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

      How many Libraries of Congress is that?

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  4. 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."

  5. 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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  6. 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.

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  7. 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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