New discovery about the giant hot planet WASP-12b

Astronomers in China have discovered a giant hot planet named WASP-12b discovered in 2008 that is losing the atmosphere with a volume of 189 million billion tons per year.

Planet WASP-12b.Photo: ESA.

WASP-12b is a gas planet, weighing 1.5 times and nearly twice the size of Jupiter, it is the hottest planet ever discovered, with a temperature of about 2,250 degrees Celsius (half the temperature on the Sun) and its distance from the parent star is only about 2% of the distance between the Earth and the Sun.

Despite its size and weight, the planet revolves around the parent star's orbit with tremendous speed. Normally the extrasolar planets take at least 3 days to go out of orbit, but the planet only runs out for 26 hours.

This planetary system is located only 871 light-years apart. Because it is so close to its parent star, the tidal force of its mother star is distorting the planet into an egg shape and pulling its atmosphere to 189 million billion tons per year.

Researchers, led by Li Shilin, a professor at Peking University, have discovered that the weight of WASP-12b is severely reduced by analyzing the light mass of the star-blocked mother. in the process of moving from mother star to Earth.

Researchers believe that the mass of tidal gas of the parent star pushing away from the planet is forming a gas disk around the star and can easily be observed with infrared telescopes. ./.