NASA’s Space Telescope named Hubble which lost one of its main cameras due to a power failure is not done yet.
Hubble has provided the astronomers for the first time an insight into the atmosphere of an extra solar planet. This planet is named HD 209458b and is at a distance of 150-light years from Earth in the constellation Pegasus.
The planet orbits at a distance of just 4.7 million miles from its star. Orbiting so close to the parent star makes the temperature of the planet so hot that the gases in it heat up and escape the gravitational pull of the planet just like we see steam rinsing from a boiler.
Hubble studied a layer which actually is the transition zone where the temperature rises from 1,340 degrees Fahrenheit to 25,540 degrees which makes the planet burn at a temperature much hotter than our sun.
With this detection astronomers can now see how a planet loses its atmosphere.
Intense ultraviolet radiation from the host star heats the gas in the upper atmosphere inflating the atmosphere like a balloon. The gas under this immense pressure leaves the gravitational pull and the atmosphere at a rate of 10,000 tons per second that is three times the rate of water flowing over the Niagara Falls.
But since the planet is very thick the astronomers predict that the planet will not wither away in the near future and the estimated life of the planet is 5 billion years.
The HD 209458b resembles our Jupiter as both are gas giants and are approximately of the same size and structure.
The planet is so close to its host star that is takes only 3.5 days to complete its orbit.
Previous observations by the space telescope revealed that the atmosphere if the planet is full of oxygen, carbon, sodium and hydrogen. The hydrogen in the atmosphere makes the comet-like tail.
Via: physorg
