{"id":17689,"date":"2009-09-07T06:15:55","date_gmt":"2009-09-07T11:15:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=17689"},"modified":"2009-09-06T09:05:49","modified_gmt":"2009-09-06T14:05:49","slug":"paradoxical-planet-perplexes-physicists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/paradoxical-planet-perplexes-physicists\/","title":{"rendered":"Paradoxical Planet Perplexes Physicists"},"content":{"rendered":"

For centuries, mankind has been watching the skies, noting the movements of the heavenly bodies, and sorting out how it all works.<\/p>\n

Then a planet like Wasp-18b<\/a> comes along and throws a spanner into the works.<\/p>\n

\"An
An artist's impression shows a "hot Jupiter" close to its parent star. Astronomers say a planet known as WASP-18b is so close to its sun that it should soon fall to its doom. Copyright: C. Carreau\/ESA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As related in an article from Sunday’s Los Angeles Times<\/em>, this particular planet has a number of standout qualities: It’s a “hot Jupiter,”<\/a> a gas giant that’s exceptionally close to its star; it has an incredibly short orbit, taking less than one Earth day to complete; and, by all accounts, it should’ve fallen into that star and burned up a long, long time ago.<\/p>\n

That, at least, is the conclusion of astrophysicist Coel Hellier of Keene University<\/a> in Staffordshire, England, who discovered Wasp-18b.<\/p>\n

“This planet should spiral inwards on such a short time scale that the likelihood of seeing it is very low,” Hellier told the newspaper.<\/p>\n

Which raises a lot of questions in the astrophysics community. For example, it could be that the star around which Wasp-18b is orbiting (which is called, coincidentally, Wasp-18) has about 1,000 times less energy than scientists believe. Or it could be that the planet has only been in that orbit a short time and that Hellier happened to catch it there as it gradually spirals into the star. But each of those propositions raises other questions.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, those looking for answers can start closer to home. One of the two moons orbiting Mars, Phobos<\/a>, is in a similar situation: it’s far closer to the planet than it should be (5,600 miles) and still maintains its orbit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For centuries, mankind has been watching the skies, noting the movements of the heavenly bodies, and sorting out how it all works. Then a planet like Wasp-18b comes along and throws a spanner into the works. As related in an article from Sunday’s Los Angeles Times, this particular planet has a number of standout qualities: … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1561],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17689"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17689\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}