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It is so close to its sun, that it orbits every 18 hours; what takes Earth one year. Astronomers have named it ‘Hot Jupiter‘ and calculate that it will have a catastrophic ending.
At 1060 light years from Earth, there is a large gaseous exoplanet called NGTS-10b , which challenges its star every time it surrounds it: it is orbited so closely that it completes an orbit in just 18.4 hours. Its ‘year’ lasts less than an Earth day.
In a study published in arXiv , astronomers have categorized it as a hot Jupiter, the name given to gaseous giant exoplanets such as that of our Solar System, but that closely orbit their stars , with orbital periods of less than 10 days . NGTS-10b, meanwhile, has broken the record.
They also calculate that the exoplanet is in a spiral towards its star , which will end up impacting it in 38 million years. This is a relatively short lifetime, considering that the Earth is 4500 million years old. Without a doubt, this ‘hot Jupiter’ is doomed.
Its end will come when it crosses the breaking point, called the Roche boundary , which defines the minimum distance at which a planet can orbit its star without being incinerated by it.
The exoplanet NGTS-10b was discovered by the ESO Next-Generation Transit Survey, a set of telescopes based in Paranal, Chile. It is 1.2 times the size of the true Jupiter, but weighs more than double.
A planet that shouldn’t exist
Although seven ‘hot Jupiters‘ have already been detected – of which the latter has the shortest orbital period -, the theory of planetary formation says that they should not exist , since a gas giant cannot form so close to its star: gravity, radiation and aggressive stellar winds should prevent gas from accumulating in these bodies.
But the reality seems to challenge the theory, since of the more than 4000 exoplanets discovered to date, it is estimated that 337 could be hot Jupiters.
The explanation that scientists find is that these planets form very far from their star , and then they begin to gradually approach, until they are trapped in these ‘dances of death’.
Like what happens when a star gets too close to a black hole , this planet feels the gravity of its sun and is flattening at the poles, ceasing to be a sphere to resemble an American football.
These effects produced in NGTS-10b will help astronomers to better study the event of tidal interruption, as the phenomenon of the flattening of bodies by the action of gravity is called.
Source: La Republica
