New insights into an ultrahot world delivered by NASA's TESS

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Measurements from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have enabled astronomers to greatly improve their understanding of the bizarre environment of KELT-9 b, one of the hottest planets known.

KELT-9 b is a gas giant world about 1.8 times bigger than Jupiter, with 2.9 times its mass. Tidal forces have locked its rotation so the same side always faces its star. The planet swings around its star in just 36 hours on an orbit that carries it almost directly above both of the star's poles.

KELT-9 b receives 44,000 times more energy from its star than Earth does from the Sun. This makes the planet's dayside temperature around 7,800 degrees Fahrenheit (4,300 C), hotter than the surfaces of some stars. This intense heating also causes the planet's atmosphere to stream away into space.

KELT-9 b's polar orbit around its flattened star produces distinctly lopsided transits. The planet begins its transit near the star's bright poles and then blocks less and less light as it travels over the star's dimmer equator.

This asymmetry provides clues to the temperature and brightness changes across the star's surface, and they permitted the team to reconstruct the star's out-of-round shape, how it's oriented in space, its range of surface temperatures, and other factors impacting the planet.

Source: https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2020/06/nasas-tess-delivers-new-insights-into.html

[LaMaisonGaga 23,884]

aw I wanna throw a BBQ on there  

[ladygagafan1234 700]

Not me thinking it was about humans becoming superhot