新的行星可能并不存在
Tidal interactions should have stretched the star and slowed the planet to the point where they smashed into each other a long time ago. The research is in the August 27th issue of the journal Nature. [Scientific American is part of the Nature Publishing Group.]
WASP-18b is part of a class of planets called “hot Jupiters,” which are thought to have formed a great distance from their home stars and then migrated inward.
Researchers say this particular planet has been around for about a billion years. We may have caught it in its death throes. Or, there are unknown factors keeping the star and planet from colliding. So astrophysicists intend to keep a close eye on WASP-18b, to either catch the orbit decaying or figure out why it isn’t.
—Cynthia Graber
- 上一篇
- 下一篇