A year on this giant, scorching planet lasts only 16 hours. It’s TOI-2019b , a newly discovered “ultra-hot Jupiter” has the shortest orbit of any known gas giant (remember that it takes Jupiter 12 years to complete one orbit around the Sun).
Their surface temperatures are over 3,000 ° C, and MIT researchers hope their discovery may help unravel the mystery of how hot exoplanets of this type get.
“Since the beginning of exoplanetary science, hot Jupiters have been viewed as weirdos,” said Avi Shporer, a co-author of the study.
The planet TOI-2109b is 855 light years distant from Earth and was discovered using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Study Satellite (TESS). By analyzing measurements at various optical and infrared wavelengths, the researchers determined that TOI-2109b is roughly five times more massive than Jupiter, 35% larger, and only 2.4 million kilometers away from its star . For comparison, Mercury is about 35 million miles from the Sun. So at some point it will be eaten by its host star.
Experts now hope to study the planet with more powerful tools, including the James Webb Space Telescope, which will launch on December 22 if no further mishaps arise.
“Ultrahot jupiters like TOI-2109b are the most extreme subclass of exoplanets,” said Ian Wong, lead author of the discovery. “In one or two years, if we are lucky, we will be able to detect how the planet approaches its star.”
Referencia: “TOI-2109: An Ultrahot Gas Giant on a 16 hr Orbit” by Ian Wong, Avi Shporer, George Zhou, Daniel Kitzmann, Thaddeus D. Komacek, Xianyu Tan, René Tronsgaard, Lars A. Buchhave, Shreyas Vissapragada, Michael Greklek-McKeon, Joseph E. Rodriguez, John P. Ahlers, Samuel N. Quinn, Elise Furlan, Steve B. Howell, Allyson Bieryla, Kevin Heng, Heather A. Knutson, Karen A. Collins, Kim K. McLeod, Perry Berlind, Peyton Brown, Michael L. Calkins, Jerome P. de Leon, Emma Esparza-Borges, Gilbert A. Esquerdo, Akihiko Fukui, Tianjun Gan, Eric Girardin, Crystal L. Gnilka, Masahiro Ikoma, Eric L. N. Jensen, John Kielkopf, Takanori Kodama, Seiya Kurita, Kathryn V. Lester, Pablo Lewin, Giuseppe Marino, Felipe Murgas, Norio Narita, Enric Pallé, Richard P. Schwarz, Keivan G. Stassun, Motohide Tamura, Noriharu Watanabe, Björn Benneke, George R. Ricker, David W. Latham, Roland Vanderspek, Sara Seager, Joshua N. Winn, Jon M. Jenkins, Douglas A. Caldwell, William Fong, Chelsea X. Huang, Ismael Mireles, Joshua E. Schlieder, Bernie Shiao and Jesus Noel Villaseñor, 23 November 2021, Astronomical Journal.
DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881/ac26bd
