Quantcast
ZME Science
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Our stance on climate change
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact
No Result
View All Result
ZME Science

No Result
View All Result
ZME Science
No Result
View All Result
Home Space Astrophysics

Stars don’t consume their planets – usually

Mihai Andrei by Mihai Andrei
June 7, 2013
in Astrophysics, Space
Reading Time: 2 mins read
A A
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterSubmit to Reddit

Stars have a pull on all planets, but they exhibit a special kind of attraction towards a class of planets called ‘Hot Jupiters‘.

hot jupiter

Hot Jupiters, also called roaster planets or pegadisds are a class of extrasolar planets very similar to Jupiter, but which have very high temperatures because they orbit very close to the Sun. It is thought that all of these planets have migrated from the extremities of the solar system to their current position because there would not have been enough material so close to the star for a planet of that mass to have formed so close to its star.

ADVERTISEMENT

So they’re formed far away from their star, and then they start getting closer; and closer… and closer! Logic tells you, as they move closer to the star, the gravitational attraction increases, and they will probably end up in eaten by the star. But a new study using data from NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope shows that hot Jupiters are in fact not often consumed by their stars – instead, remaining stable for several billions of years.

Sorry to interrupt, but you should really...

...Join the ZME newsletter for amazing science news, features, and exclusive scoops. More than 40,000 subscribers can't be wrong.

   

“Eventually, all hot Jupiters get closer and closer to their stars, but in this study we are showing that this process stops before the stars get too close,” said Peter Plavchan of NASA’s Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. “The planets mostly stabilize once their orbits become circular, whipping around their stars every few days.”

The study, which was published in the Astrophysical Journal, is the first to show that hot Jupiter planets halt their inward march on stars, stabilizing an orbit as the migration ceases.

“When only a few hot Jupiters were known, several models could explain the observations,” said Jack Lissauer, a Kepler scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffet Field, Calif., not affiliated with the study. “But finding trends in populations of these planets shows that tides, in combination with gravitational forces by often unseen planetary and stellar companions, can bring these giant planets close to their host stars.”

The full paper can be read here.

ADVERTISEMENT

Via NASA

Tags: hot jupiterKepler telescope
ShareTweetShare
Mihai Andrei

Mihai Andrei

Andrei's background is in geophysics, and he's been fascinated by it ever since he was a child. Feeling that there is a gap between scientists and the general audience, he started ZME Science -- and the results are what you see today.

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More

© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Our stance on climate change
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact

© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.