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To: VRWCmember

The planet is called “Gore.”


2 posted on 08/27/2009 8:47:19 AM PDT by Dr. Bogus Pachysandra ( Ya can't pick up a turd by the clean end!)
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To: Dr. Bogus Pachysandra
It's a slow death. The planet WASP-18b has maybe a million years to live, said planet discoverer Coel Hellier, a professor of astrophysics at the Keele University in England. Hellier's report on the suicidal planet is in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

"It's causing its own destruction by creating these tides," Hellier said.

...

The planet circles a star that is in the constellation Phoenix and is about 325 light-years away from Earth, which means it is in our galactic neighborhood. A light-year is about 5.8 trillion miles.

...

Like most planets outside our solar system, this planet was not seen directly by a telescope. Astronomers found it by seeing dips in light from the star every time the planet came between the star and Earth.

...

The answer will become apparent in less than a decade if the planet seems to be further in a death spiral, he said.

So if the planet has "maybe a million years" left, how will there be enough change in "less than a decade" to make any answers apparent?
10 posted on 08/27/2009 8:54:02 AM PDT by VRWCmember
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