Thursday, January 18 2024 – 08:08 WIB
Jakarta – A comet-like planet outside our solar system is losing more of its atmosphere in its vast tail than previously thought, intriguing astronomers and raising new questions about how planets coevolve with their parent stars.
Reported LIVE Techno from SpaceThursday, January 18 2024, Exoplanet WASP-69b, a hot, puffy gas giant planet that is 160 light years from Earth and orbits its parent star in 3.9 days, first became famous in 2018 when astronomers discovered a gas tail which resemble comets leaking from the planet’s atmosphere.
The tail, once thought to be just a tiny trace of helium particles, is now estimated to be at least 563,270 kilometers long as its atmosphere is blown away by the solar wind from its host star.
Tyler shared new data about WASP-69 b’s atmosphere leaked from the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, which is also described in a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal this week.
Recent observations show that its atmosphere is tearing away from the planet at a speed of 200,000 tons per second, forming a vast comet-like tail that has never been seen before.
The new findings are due in large part to the Keck Observatory’s large telescope mirror, which collected more light than previous telescopes observing WASP-69b.
But it’s possible that the mirrors are also changing the behavior of the star WASP-69, which astronomers call stellar variability, Tyler said. “It’s difficult to know exactly what kind of variability is occurring within the star itself.”
Thanks to its gas-emitting atmosphere, WASP-69b loses one Earth mass every billion years, which is “quite a lot,” Tyler said, “but for a hot Jupiter, that’s not so much.”
Observing the sweeping tail will reveal how WASP-69b’s atmosphere interacts with its parent star, thereby explaining the evolution of the planet and its host star.
“For most known exoplanets, we suspect that the period of atmospheric loss is long over,” study co-author Erik Petigura of UCLA said in a statement. “The WASP-69b system is a gem because we have the rare opportunity to study atmospheric mass loss in real time and understand the critical physics that shape thousands of other planets.”
In addition to its scientific appeal, the planet’s resilience in the face of unrelenting stellar winds also serves as a powerful reminder of perspective, Tyler said in the statement.
“Despite the many challenges we may face, such as WASP-69b, we have what it takes to continue moving forward.”
2024-01-18 01:08:02
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