On this exoplanet, a year barely lasts 18 hours. Located at 1,000 light years of the Earth, NGTS-10b is what is called a ” Hot Jupiter ” : a gas giant similar in size and composition to the Jupiter of our Solar system. But where Jupiter takes 12 years to tour the Sun, NGTS-10b revolves around its star in just 18 hours, a record for this type of planet. ” Of the hundreds of hot Jupiters currently known, only 7 have a orbital period less than a day “, Attests James McCormac, of the department of physical from the University of Warwick, behind the discovery described on February 20 in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
20% larger and twice as heavy as Jupiter, NGTS-10b is indeed located 27 times closer to its star than Mercury relative to the Sun. This star, 1,000 times warmer and 70% smaller than the Sun, however heats the planet to more than 1,000 ° C, especially since it is always the same face that is exposed to the star.
The astronomers from the University of Warwick discovered the exoplanet through the Next-Generation Transit Survey, a collaboration of telescopes at the Cerro Paranal Observatory of the European Southern Observatory in Chile. They used the so-called “transit” method, which consists of identifying drops in brightness of a star signaling the passage of a planet. Astronomers will now continue to monitor this exoplanet to determine if its orbit is stable or if it approaches in a spiral towards the star. ” We could then witness the death of a planet occurred 1,000 years ago “Rejoices James McCormac.
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