Vanishing world may be roasted down to its core

• Autores: Jacob Aron
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 2905, 2013, pág. 14
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • A disappearing exoplanet helps understand how some rocky worlds meet fiery ends, and may even gives a glimpse of what lies deep inside rocky planets like Earth. Known as KIC12557548b, the planet was discovered last year using the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Kepler space telescope. This eye in the sky looks for dips in starlight as a planet passes in front of its host star. The more light is blocked, the larger the planet. KIC12557548b is very small and orbits so close to its star that its year lasts just 16 hours. What's more, the dimming it causes varies wildly. This could be because the planet is surrounded by a gigantic, everchanging cloud of material that stretches into a long tail.