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Suicidal Planet on Death Spiral Into Star

By SETH BORENSTEIN

posted: 23 HOURS 20 MINUTES AGO

comments: 732

filed under: Science News

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WASHINGTON (Sept. 27) - Astronomers have found what appears to be a gigantic suicidal planet.

The odd, fiery planet is so close to its star and so large that it is triggering tremendous plasma tides on the star. Those powerful tides are in turn warping the planet's zippy less-than-a-day orbit around its star.

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Illustration of an exoplanet similar to the newly discovered WASP-18b, which scientists say is on a collision course with its star.

C. Carreau, ESA / Nature

An artist's impression depicts an exoplanet similar to the newly discovered WASP-18b, which scientists say is on a collision course with its star.

The result: an ever-closer tango of death, with the planet eventually spiraling into the star.

It's a slow death. The planet WASP-18b has maybe a million years to live, said planet discoverer Coel Hellier, a professor of astrophysics at the Keele University in England. Hellier's report on the suicidal planet is in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

"It's causing its own destruction by creating these tides," Hellier said.

The star is called WASP-18 and the planet is WASP-18b because of the Wide Angle Search for Planets team that found them.

The planet circles a star that is in the constellation Phoenix and is about 325 light-years away from Earth, which means it is in our galactic neighborhood. A light-year is about 5.8 trillion miles.

The planet is 1.9 million miles from its star, 1/50th of the distance between Earth and the sun, our star. And because of that the temperature is about 3,800 degrees.

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http://xml.channel.aol.com/xmlpublisher/fetch.v2.xml?option=expand_relative_urls&dataUrlNodes=uiConfig,feedConfig,entry&id=366368&pid=366367&uts=1248383054

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Amazing Space Images

This image taken by NASA with an infrared telescope in Hawaii shows a large impact on Jupiter's south polar region early Monday. Astronomers say Jupiter was apparently struck by an object, possibly a comet. It happened on the 15th anniversary of another comet strike.

JPL / NASA / AP

Its size — 10 times bigger than Jupiter — and its proximity to its star make it likely to die, Hellier said.

Think of how the distant moon pulls Earth's oceans to form twice-daily tides. The effect the odd planet has on its star is thousands of times stronger, Hellier said. The star's tidal bulge of plasma may extend hundreds of miles, he said.

Like most planets outside our solar system, this planet was not seen directly by a telescope. Astronomers found it by seeing dips in light from the star every time the planet came between the star and Earth.

So far astronomers have found more than 370 planets outside the solar system. This one is "yet another weird one in the exoplanet menagerie," said planet specialist Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

It's so unusual to find a suicidal planet that University of Maryland astronomer Douglas Hamilton questioned whether there was another explanation. While it is likely that this is a suicidal planet, Hamilton said it is also possible that some basic physics calculations that all astronomers rely on could be dead wrong.

The answer will become apparent in less than a decade if the planet seems to be further in a death spiral, he said.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

2009-08-26 13:43:17

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AP Science NewsBrief at 8:43 p.m. EDT
21 hours ago
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BillRobinson40

07:15 PMAug 28 2009

Gee, only a million years left to live.

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TrekkinBob

07:07 PMAug 28 2009

SmokeFH 07:00 PMAug 28 2009 THAT SURE DOES NOT MAKE YOU A MAN, JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN BEAT CRAP OUT OF SOMEONE....................no, but in the Souix warrior tradition it allows some of us to count coup. This is even better. Stargazer would know more about this than me. But don't you love this ? Smart people rule. And I'm not one of them.

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htc6600

07:03 PMAug 28 2009

See an ad with a website, report it! We're never going to lose them if we don't report them.

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HBurns1351

07:01 PMAug 28 2009

Scottshad195206:42 PMAug 28 2009MAN, WHAT A BUNCH IGNORANT PEOPLE HERE TONIGHT....I FEEL SORRY THE SMALL GROUP OF PEOPLE HERE THAT USE THEIR BRAIN FOR EVERYTHING BUT THINKING. IF ALL YOU PEOPLE CAN DO IS SEND BACK THESE DUMB NOTES, WHY DON'T YOU BE A MAN ABOUT IT, AND MEET IN PERSON AND BEAT EACH OTHER UP!!!!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~HB : You mind telling us which group you are speaking to? Or do you usually just fling your poop randomly?

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TrekkinBob

07:00 PMAug 28 2009

Sixeyess4dinner 06:51 PMAug 28 2009 MarkAllenTunney 06:48 PMAug 28 2009 Do any of you goof balls out there, have one clue what's going on in this world? I have seen better crap out of the mouths of the retarded and insane.@@@@ Mammal feces have a social communication role. When randomly deposited they show the individual or group home-range, as among American marsupials, lagomorphs, some ungulates, some rodents, and primates. They are used as territorial marks when deposited in small volumes in prominent places such as trail junctions, rocks, trunks, and AOL forums....................damn you, you made me spew precious margarita as an involuntary discharge - not as projectile vomit, but as an incoherent autonomic response in advanced primates otherwise known as - laughter.

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SmokeFH

07:00 PMAug 28 2009

THAT SURE DOES NOT MAKE YOU A MAN, JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN BEAT CRAP OUT OF SOMEONE.

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TrekkinBob

06:55 PMAug 28 2009

MarkAllenTunney 06:48 PMAug 28 2009 Do any of you goof balls out there, have one clue what's going on in this world? I have seen better crap out of the mouths of the retarded and insane...................I agree. Turn on Pat Robertson's 700 Club or your favorite tv preacher. Or read posts here from fundy religious people. Better crap has never been heard. and they'll freely admit to this.

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MarkAllenTunney

06:53 PMAug 28 2009

Wow, you can read, how impressive.

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