Picture Of The Day May 11, 2008 - A Doomed Planet

Compiled by KD Martin


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Imagine another Jupiter inside the orbit of Mercury. That would make some interesting sunsets.

Here's a computer-generated image of TrES-3, a planet which is slowly falling into its sun. A year on the planet, in the Hercules constellation, lasts only 31 hours because its orbit is so small. "TrES-3 is an unusual planet as it orbits its parent star in just 31 hours!," said Georgi Mandushev, Lowell Observatory astronomer.

It occasionally passes right in front of the sun that will soon kill it, and then it's visible to amateur astronomers — like it was this week. Astronomers from the Trans-atlantic Exo-Planet Survey (TrES) discovered the suicidal world a year ago.

It is also a very massive planet – about twice the mass of the solar system's biggest planet, Jupiter – and is one of the planets with the shortest known periods.

TrES-3 is about 800 light-years distant and because it is so close to its host star, it is very hot, about 1,500 degrees Kelvin. The planet would be incinerated if its sun wasn't smaller and cooler than our own.


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You could have a birthday every month!