Weekend Feature: The Case of the Vanishing Alien Planet --A Kepler Mission Discovery

 

 

           

Astronomers may have detected evidence of a possible planet disintegrating under the searing heat of its host star located 1,500 light-years from Earth. Similar to a debris-trailing comet, the super Mercury-size planet candidate is theorized to fashion a dusty tail. But the tail won't last for long. Scientists calculate that, at the current rate of evaporation, the dusty world could be completely vaporized within 200 million years.

A research team led by Saul Rappaport, professor emeritus of physics at MIT, Boston, Mass., has identified an unusual light pattern emanating from a star named KIC 12557548 in the Kepler space telescope's field-of-view. 

NASA's Kepler space telescope detects planets and planet candidates by measuring dips in the brightness of more than 150,000 stars to search for planets crossing in front, or transiting, their stars.

"The bizarre nature of the light output from this star with its precisely periodic transit-like features and highly variable depths exemplifies how Kepler is expanding the frontiers of science in unexpected ways," said Jon Jenkins, Kepler co-investigator at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif. "This discovery pulls back the curtain of how science works in the face of surprising data."

Orbiting a star smaller and cooler than our sun, the planet candidate completes its orbit in less than 16 hours-- making it one of the shortest orbits ever detected. At an orbital distance of only twice the diameter of its star, the surface temperature of the planet is estimated to be a smoldering 3,300 degrees Fahrenheit.

Scientists hypothesize that the star-facing side of the potentially rocky inferno is an ocean of seething magma. The surface melts and evaporates at such high temperatures that the energy from the resulting wind is enough to allow dust and gas to escape into space. This dusty effluence trails behind the doomed companion as it disintegrates around the star.

Additional follow-up observations are needed to confirm the candidate as a planet. The finding is published in The Astrophysical Journal and is available for download at: http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.2662 

The Daily Galaxy via mit.edu and nasa.gov/kepler

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Comments

[Hussain Al-Khalaf]

@DailyGalaxy,

can you please use international standards ? not every body use Fahrenheit, so please use Centigrade or at least add both... same goes for using Miles and KM's... etc..

[Singaporistu]

agree, pls convert also in Celsius and km.

I wish national pride of some scientist of 19'th century didn't give us so many measurements units (or driving on the other side of the road) but then again pride is one of the things that makes us human. If scientist manage in 20 century to come to agreement in most of the science's standards and policy, why nobody is brave enough and take charge of this matter, look into it, make a common standard and push it through legislation and enforce it on economy. It will be a bit uncomfortable for society at the beginning, but at least next generations don't have to scratch their heads because some humans in the past digress on a standard.

Out of the many mixtures of standards i think is best to have is litter, kg, meter, celsius combination because they have as a common denominator for easy conversion across volume / size / weight which is the element most ppl are used to = water: 1 liter water = 1 kg = 10 cm3 , freeze at 0deg celsius, boils at 100deg celsius simple, easy to appreciate and extrapolate especially if you felt ice/snow or felt the hot water ... even a kid can appreciate and envision high temperatures or sizes that without a mental conversion

As for 0 absolute, for the time being, it doesn't really mater the universality if cannot relate it to anything in the environment I'm used to. I can appreciate easier -273 as being almost 3 times less than water freeze-boiling difference rather 0 absolute which I never touch, never experience and never will without a protecting suit so basically never know through my sensory how that feels but it's just a mental concept

[Harry R Ray]

Aw c'mon! That's just the official story. We all know that what's really happening is that ET's are trying to sontact us using smoke signals

[Harry R Ray]

SORRY! I meant "contact"

[smartypants]

I am sure the picture is an artist rendering BUT if it has a tail "like a comet" wouldnt it point straight away from the star? Comet tails do. You know, solar winds and all, tail made of dust.

If the tail is trailing, would it make more sense that the planet maybe broke up, and like comer Shoemaker-Levy has become a line of fragments, each giving off a tail away from the star?

[smartypants]

lol comer i needs glasses comeT