Deadly Dance: Giant Planet Found Orbiting Huge Star

space DOT COM ^ | 23 January 2003 | By Robert Roy Britt

[vannrox]

Deadly Dance: Giant Planet Found Orbiting Huge Star

By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 07:00 am ET
23 January 2003

A large planet recently found orbiting a distant star serves as a preview for the likely frying fate that awaits our own planet.



The star, called HD 47536, is more than 23 times the diameter of our Sun. It is the largest star ever found to harbor a planet. The discovery was announced Wednesday.

The planet is five to 10 times heavier than Jupiter and orbits the star more than twice as far as Earth is from the Sun, or at a distance of roughly 186 million miles (300 million kilometers). It goes around the star every 712 days.

The 6th-magnitude giant star HD 47536, around which a planet has been found. CREDIT: Digital Sky Survey

30 Billion Earths? New Estimate of Exoplanets in Our Galaxy

The star is in the southern constellation of Canis Major (The Great Dog) and is at the very fringe of visibility for naked-eye observers under perfectly dark skies. It is almost 400 light-years away. Only one other planet has ever been found farther from our solar system.

Along with other recent discoveries, including a planet detected in a system oftwo closely orbiting stars, astronomers are realizing that planets can grow to all sorts of sizes in a myriad of environments and orbital configurations.

The new observations were made using the European Southern Observatory's La Silla Observatory in Chile. The work was led by German astronomer Johny Setiawan.

The planet was not seen directly. Instead, it was detected by noting a gravitational wobble it induces on the star. This so-called radial-velocity method is to date the most successful used to find planets outside our solar system.

Interestingly, however, this discovery was a side show to the real work of observing giant stars in an effort to spot variations in their shape, size and output.

About two-thirds of the 80 star examined in the study were found to wobble. Some of the wobbles are probably induced by companion stars, astronomers said. But HD 47536 attracted attention and was examined more closely.

"We are very excited about this discovery because it now widens the search for exoplanets towards more massive stars," said Luca Pasquini, an ESO researcher also involved in the find.

Massive stars typically rotate very rapidly, making observations difficult. But as they age, the stars inflate and their rotation is slowed, "and we then have a much better chance of detecting possible exoplanets in orbit around them," Pasquini said.

Even though HD 47536 and its planet don't resemble the Sun and Earth, a destructive process going on there is similar to one that will occur here in a few billion years. The star is swelling so dramatically that the fraction of sky it occupies, as seen from the planet, is growing, astronomers say. Temperatures are rising, along with winds. In some tens of millions of years, the planet will literally fry.

When a similar scenarioplays out on Earth, extreme drought will prevail in the early stages, theorists say. Eventually, the oceans will evaporate. Ultimately, Earth will be incinerated. Unless, some have suggested, our world moves outward (due to the reduced gravity of a dying Sun). One team of theorists has even calculated a way to move our planet out of danger.

[vannrox]

Very interesting. I wonder how many planets have been discovered so far? I'm losing track.

[smith288]

How will the greenfreaks stop this type of global warming!?!?!?

Face it hippies, our world will end in a firey hell. No federal regulations against a shoe factory in Pittsburgh will stop it.

[vannrox]

.


EXOPLANET NEWS
Your ONE STOP source for all
Planetary Discoveries.


.

[verity]

This could be series! Time to take a long shower.;~)

[vannrox]

Some links...

[AnAmericanMother]

... that will occur here in a few billion years ...

I think you may run out of hot water . . .

[kjam22]

One team of theorists has even calculated a way to move our planet out of danger.

Talk about nothing better to do. Calculating a solution for a problem that won't happen for millions of years? I mean I have got better things to do with my time.

[Centurion2000]

The planet is five to 10 times heavier than Jupiter and orbits the star more than twice as far as Earth is from the Sun, or at a distance of roughly 186 million miles (300 million kilometers). It goes around the star every 712 days

This isn't exactly a planet as it's pushing the envelope for a protostar or brown dwarf classification. Of course being that large does mean that it will create it's own habitable zone in the form of radiated heat from the planet.

Come to think of it there was an article that postulated that Earth type planets may not be able to survive gravitational pertubations around stars due to influences from gas giants.

We may find that there are more habitable giant moons (like Callisto/Europa/Ganymede size) than habitable planets outside the solar system.

[vannrox]

GO HERE TO SEE THE COOLEST VRML graphic portrayals of extrasolar planets!
Download the player. They are amazing!

[Savage Beast]

"It is almost 400 light-years away."

What!?!! That's practically in the back yard!

[vannrox]

This is a VRML model for 55 Cancri, it has four discovered planets. Very cool. You have to down load the player though. They don't have windows 2000, but the NT version works fine on my windows 2000 system.

[vannrox]

This is a VRML model for 55 Cancri, it has four discovered planets. Very cool. You have to down load the player though. They don't have windows 2000, but the NT version works fine on my windows 2000 system.

[MosesKnows]

I mean I have got better things to do with my time.

Yes, but will what you do with your time be as lucrative as receiving federally funded tax dollars to propose a solution?

[destroid]

For an interesting alternative explanation of these discoveries visit this site:

http://www.electric-cosmos.org

Binary stars and the common configuration of a star and gas giant planets may be the result of the electrical nature of the universe.

As an EE this makes a lot of sense to me, but the site is written for the lay-person with links to more thorough research.

enjoy...

[Rebelbase]

"pertubations around stars due to influences from gas giants. "

There is a celebrity-activist joke in there somewhere.

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[steve-b]

Bloated... red... in the "Big Dog" constellation... I propose that we name this star "Clinton's Nose".

[SauronOfMordor]

Face it hippies, our world will end in a firey hell.

In a million years, either we won't be around, or we will have figured out a way to move the earth to a better location. Either way, I won't worry about it.

[cogitator]

Very interesting. I wonder how many planets have been discovered so far?

I think it's around 100 or so. ("Or so" meaning +/- 25).

[smith288]

Exactly... No matter how clean we keep this place...its destined for doom... and no EPA regulation to reduce pollution from 12% to 10% will stop it. Stupid greenfreaks.


PS- I dont think we are going trekking to any planets. Just a belief of mine.