Astronomers have discovered that exoplanet WASP-69b has a 350,000-mile-long tail. This is an artist’s illustration of WASP-69b orbiting its parent star. (Adam Makarenko/WM Keck Observatory)
[The Epoch Times, February 04, 2024](Epoch Times reporter Chen Juncun reported) Scientists have discovered that a strange and huge exoplanet drags a 350,000-mile (563,000-kilometer) long tail when it orbits. See It looks like a comet. Although scientists first discovered the exoplanet in 2014, they only confirmed in recent studies that it has a long tail of gas.
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) pointed out in a press release that the exoplanet named WASP-69b is about 160 light-years away from the Earth, is about the same size as Jupiter, and its orbit is very Close to the parent star.
A research team led by astrophysicists from the school found that WASP-69b is so close to its parent star that its atmosphere evaporates at a rate of 200,000 tons per second, blown by the stellar wind. Below, it formed a comet-like tail that was at least 350,000 miles long, far longer than previously observed.
Dakotah Tyler, a doctoral student at UCLA and one of the authors of this study, said that previous studies found that WASP-69b lost part of its atmosphere and may form a tail that is not very obvious, or there is no tail at all, but they found in Its tail was detected in the study and confirmed to be at least seven times as long as the planet itself.
WASP-69b is a hot Jupiter first discovered 10 years ago, which is an exogas giant planet very close to its parent star. WASP-69b is 1.1 times the diameter of Jupiter, but orbits its parent star every 3.9 days. By comparison, Mercury, the closest planet to the sun, orbits it in an 88-day cycle.
Directly studying planets that have lost such atmospheres is important for understanding how planets in the Milky Way evolve over time, the researchers say.
Another report author, Erik Petigura, a professor of astrophysics at UCLA, said that scientists previously believed that most known exoplanets lost their atmospheres a long time ago. But WASP-69b is like a jewel, giving them a rare opportunity to study the loss of a planet’s atmosphere in real time and understand the key physics on which thousands of other planets form.
This study shows that the gas lost by WASP-69b is mainly hydrogen and helium, which is blown in the direction of Earth by the stellar wind. Researchers can calculate how much mass the planet has lost.
Taylor said that even if WASP-69b is very close to its parent star, its atmosphere will not completely evaporate. It is so massive that its parent star dies long before its atmosphere disappears.
He explained that WASP-69b has a mass about 90 times that of the Earth and has a large amount of matter. Even if it loses part of its mass, it will not have much impact. It is not at risk of losing all of its atmosphere during the lifetime of its parent star.
The above research results were published in The Astrophysical Journal (The Astrophysical Journal) in January.
Editor in charge: Sun Yun#
