WASP-12b a exoplanet orbiting the star WASP-12, located some 867 years Earth light, is being destroyed by it.
This gas giant, which has a mass greater than Jupiter spins so fast around its sun than its year lasts only 26 hours. This is because it is very close to the star, and this is killing.
The planet in question is WASP-12b, one of the most enigmatic of the nearly 400 that astronomers have found outside our solar system . The discovery, as its authors explain in the journal Nature would explain the strange way that owns this gas balloon on top.
The study was led by Shu-Li, the National Astronomical Observatories of China, and counted with the collaboration of researchers from the United States. Discovered in 2008, WASP-12b is the hottest planet known. Its surface has a temperature of about 2500 ° C .
One of the reasons that planet a hell is that it describes its orbit at a distance very small-less than 2% of that between the Earth around the Sun, the star WASP-12. The planet is 50% more mass and size 80% bigger than our Jupiter and Shu-Li as "tidal forces caused by the attraction of the star are the cause of the enormous size of the planet."
Indeed, on Earth as well as the interaction between our planet and the moon causes tides to alter the level sea, on WASP-12b proximity between the planet and the star originated enormous forces that distort their shape and provide a way similar to a rugby ball.
Every second that passes, WASP-12b loses six million tons of its mass. If the process continues at this rate, entire mass of the planet will be gone in about ten million years .
Link: universetoday.com 
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