Self Destruction

StarDate

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9d ago 2:14

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A young “cotton-candy” planet is hastening its own demise. As it dips close to its star, it appears to trigger giant explosions that erode the planet’s atmosphere.

The planet orbits HIP 67522, a star roughly 400 light-years from Earth. The star is a little bigger and heavier than the Sun, but less than one percent the Sun’s age. Such young stars generate strong magnetic fields. Lines of magnetic force tangle and snap, producing powerful flares. The planet, HIP 67522 b, orbits just a few million miles from the star, so it already receives hefty doses of radiation and charged particles.

A European space telescope, Cheops, has seen 15 flares that are tied to the planet’s orbit around the star. The planet may gather magnetic energy as it whips around the star. Waves of magnetic force ripple outward like the wake of a ship. When the waves hit a stormy spot on the star, they trigger a giant flare. That douses the planet with six times more radiation than it would receive otherwise.

HIP 67522 b is almost as big as Jupiter, the giant of our own solar system. But it’s only about one-quarter of Jupiter’s mass. That makes the planet especially puffy, like cotton candy. But as it’s zapped by the star, some of its atmosphere is blown away. In a hundred million years or so, it could shrink to less than half its current size – a shrinkage caused by its close orbit around the star.

Script by Damond Benningfield

3037 episodes

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