One year on this newly discovered plant is just seven days on Earth

India Today

15 hours ago

Astronomers have discovered a new planet, which is so close to its star that one year lasts just seven days. The planet completes one revolution around the Sun in just seven days.The team found that the planet, dubbed HIP 67522 b, orbits its parent star so tightly that it appears to cause frequent flares from the star's surface, heating and inflating the planet's atmosphere.advertisementThe new planet was discovered by a team of scientists from the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland, led by Ekaterina Ilin of the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy. They used space-borne telescopes, Nasa's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) and the European Space Agency's CHaracterising ExoPlanets Telescope (CHEOPS), to track flares on the star.
This is the first-ever evidence for a 'planet with a death wish'. Though it was theorised to be possible since the nineties, the flares seen in this research are around 100 times more energetic than expected.
Astronomers using the European Space Agency's Cheops mission have caught a clingy exoplanet that seems to be triggering flares of radiation from the star it orbits. (Photo: ESA)
advertisementThe planet is orbiting a star named HIP 67522, which was known to be just slightly larger and cooler than our own host star, the Sun. But while the Sun is a middle-aged 4.5-billion-year-old, HIP 67522 is a fresh-faced 17-million-year-old. It bears two planets."The star and the planet form a powerful but likely destructive bond. In a manner not yet fully understood, the planet hooks into the star's magnetic field, triggering flares on the star's surface; the flares whiplash energy back to the planet. Combined with other high-energy radiation from the star, the flare-induced heating appears to have increased the already steep inflation of the planet's atmosphere," Nasa said in a statement.Unsurprisingly, being bombarded with so much high-energy radiation does not bode well for HIP 67522 b. The planet is similar in size to Jupiter but has the density of candy floss, making it one of the wispiest exoplanets ever found.
Graphic: ESA
Over time, the radiation is eroding away the planet's feathery atmosphere, meaning it is losing mass much faster than expected. In the next 100 million years, it could go from an almost Jupiter-sized planet to a much smaller Neptune-sized planet.advertisement'The planet seems to be triggering particularly energetic flares. The waves it sends along the star's magnetic field lines kick off flares at specific moments. But the energy of the flares is much higher than the energy of the waves. We think that the waves are setting off explosions that are waiting to happen,' points out Ekaterina.- Ends