An ‘ultrahot Jupiter’ exoplanet has been discovered with blistering surface temperatures of 6,000°F.
The planet, dubbed TOI-2109b, also has an unusually short orbit of just 16 hours – the shortest of any known gas giant yet.
Jupiter’s full orbit around sun takes only 12 years.
Researchers from MIT are hopeful that the discovery of the Jupiter exoplanet could solve the mystery about how Jupiter came to be.
Avi Shporer co-author, said, “Hot Jupiters have always been seen as weirdballs since the inception of exoplanetary scientific science.”
How does an enormous planet like Jupiter get into an orbit only days in length? There is nothing like it in the solar system. This gives us an opportunity to investigate them further and provide explanations for their existence.
The planet, dubbed TOI-2109b, also has an unusually short orbit of just 16 hours – the shortest of any known gas giant yet
NASA’s Transiting Explanet Survey Satellite, (TESS) was used to discover TOI-2109b at 855 lightyears from Earth.
The planet’s dayside is close to 6,000 Fahrenheit due to the tight orbit it shares with its star.
According to researchers, this makes it the second-hottest object detected.
“Meanwhile the planet’s evening side brightness is lower than the TESS data which raises doubts about what really is happening,” Dr Shporer explained.
Is it very cold there, or is heat being transferred to the nightside from the planet’s day side?
“We are just beginning to address this question regarding these extremely hot Jupiters.”
The researchers analyzed measurements at different wavelengths of the infrared and optical spectrums to determine that TOI-2109b was approximately five times larger than Jupiter and 35 percent bigger. They also found it is only 1.5 million miles from its star.
NASA’s Transiting Eoplanets Survey Satellite (TESS), a NASA fully integrated transiting exoplanet survey satellite, was launched in 2018, to discover thousands of planets orbiting other stars.
Mercury, on the other hand is approximately 36 million miles from the sun.
Its properties indicate that the planet may be undergoing ‘orbital decay’ – a process in which a planet spirals towards its star, with TOI-2109b predicted to be spiralling at a rate of 10 to 750 milliseconds per year.
Now, the team hopes to explore the planet using more powerful instruments, such as the James Webb Space Telescope (which will launch December 22nd).
Ian Wong was the lead author.
“We only have just begun to understand the special physical and chemical processes occurring in their atmospheres. These processes are unlike any other in our solar system.
“In one to two years, depending on our luck, we might be able detect the path of the planet towards its star.
The planet will never fall to its star in our lifetime. It could be gone in 10,000,000 years.
WHAT IS TESS SPACECRAFT?
NASA’s brand new “Planet Hunter” has been equipped with four cameras. This will give it the ability to view 85 percent of all visible sky.
The hope is that TESS can uncover more clues about the existence of life beyond the Kepler targets by studying much brighter objects.
The four cameras’ wide-field lenses will see the sky in 26 sections, which will be viewed one after another by its four wide-field camera.
It will be mapping the northern sky’s 13 sections in its first year.
In the coming year it will continue to search for northern regions.
Paul Hertz from NASA Headquarters’ Astrophysics Division said, “We learned from Kepler, that there are more stars than planets in our sky. And now, TESS is going to open our eyes towards the diversity of planets around the nearest stars.”
TESS will expand the search for mysterious planets that can be explored by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, and other NASA missions.
Tess is 5 feet (1.5 meters) wide and is shorter than most adults.
The 4 ft (1.2 m) observatory measures, excluding the solar wings which are folded to launch it, and only 800 lbs (362 kilograms) in weight.
NASA claims it measures somewhere between a refrigerator or a stacked washer/dryer.
Tess will seek a uniquely extended orbit, which passes as close as possible to Earth at one end but as far as the moon’s orbit on the other.
Tess will need two weeks to circle Earth.