A planet evaporating

2003/05/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Astrofisika

Astronomers have first seen a planet evaporating thanks to the Hubble telescope. The planet is outside the solar system and is of the ‘hot Jupiter’ type, that is, it is a gas planet.

Apparently, the planet is evaporating by temperature, as it is very close to its star. Therefore, heat causes hydrogen to boil and escape from the atmosphere of the planet. This phenomenon has made the planet look like a comet, with a hydrogen tail of 200,000 kilometers in length. In addition, the planet loses 10,000 tons of hydrogen in a single second and, from this data, astronomers claim that most of the planet has evaporated.