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WASP-12b

Coordinates: Sky map 06h 30m 33s, +29° 40′ 20″
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WASP-12b was an extrasolar planet, discovered by the SuperWASP planetary transit survey orbiting the star WASP-12. Its discovery was announced on April 1, 2008.[1] Due to its extremely close orbit to its star, its radius is 79% larger than Jupiter's and its mass 41% larger.[2] The planet takes only a little over a day to orbit the star, in contrast to 365 days for the Earth to orbit the Sun. Its distance from the star is only 1/44 the Earth’s distance from the Sun with the eccentricity the same as Jupiter.

The planet is so close to WASP-12 that the star's tidal forces are distorting the planet into an egg shape and pulling away its atmosphere at a rate of about 10−7 MJ (about 189 million billion tonnes) per year.[3] The so-called "tidal heating", and the proximity of the planet to its star, combine to bring the surface temperature to more than 2,500 K (2,200 °C).

On 20 May 2010, the Hubble Space Telescope spotted WASP-12b being consumed by it's star. Despite scientists already being aware that stars can consume planets, this is the first time such an event has been spotted so clearly. [4]

See also

References

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference wasp was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference oasis was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Li, Shu-lin; Miller, N.; Lin, Douglas N. C.; Fortney, Jonathan J. (2010), "WASP-12b as a prolate, inflated and disrupting planet from tidal dissipation", Nature, 463 (7284): 1054–1056, doi:10.1038/nature08715, PMID 20182506 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |lastauthoramp= ignored (|name-list-style= suggested) (help).
  4. ^ http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/planet-eater.html

Media related to WASP-12b at Wikimedia Commons