WASP-69b is an exoplanet that has just 30 percentage of Jupiter ’s mountain , but is 10 percent great . This world is dramatically puffed - up because it orbits very close to its mavin , completing an cranial orbit in just 3.9 days . And its inflated bed are not staying put – the stellar wind is eroding them , creating a comet - like tail . The latest observations advise that it is much longer than scientist had expected .
The tooshie extends for at least 580,000 km ( 360,000 miles ) . It is composed mainly of He , which the astronomers tracked with the Keck Observatory . Thestellar windsculpted the atmosphere escaping the planet into a foresighted , shadowy tail that can be seen intelligibly in infrared light .
“ Previous observations intimate that WASP-69b had a modest tail , or no tail at all , ” Dakotah Tyler , astrophysics doctoral candidate at UCLA and first generator of the study , state in astatement . “ However , we have been able to definitively show that this major planet ’s helium tail extends at least seven times the r of the gargantuan planet itself . ”
The star WASP-69 is slimly smaller and cooler than the Sun , not that this is enough to intercept it touch the planet . The planet ’s being falsify , and losing about one Earth ’s Charles Frederick Worth of mass every billion days or so . These kinds of satellite are very coarse in space and even planet in our Solar System , likeMars , experience atmospheric loss from the solar hint .
“ The WASP-69b system of rules is a treasure because we are able to study its atmospheric mass - loss in real - sentence , ” enjoin cobalt - author , Erik Petigura , associate professor of uranology and astrophysics at UCLA . “ This reach for a uncommon chance to understand the critical aperient that form thousands of other planets . ”
“ Thesecomet - like tailsare really worthful because they shape when the escaping standard atmosphere of the planet random access memory into the starring air current , which have the gas to be swept back . detect such an extended tail allows us to study these interactions in great item , ” Petigura continue .
WASP- 69b has a dull and muzzy atmospheric state that is partly clouded . It is an extreme example of atmospheric loss and a tailed planet , but it wo n’t just evaporate out . The planet has 90 Earth ’s Charles Frederick Worth of sight , so the lead willdestroy itby becoming a red giant in several billion year , rather than making it melt away .
The sketch is published inThe Astrophysical Journaland was presented at the243rdmeetingof the American Astronomical Society .
