Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                              2020 February 26

                   NGST-10b: Discovery of a Doomed Planet
    Illustration Credit: ESA, C. Carreau; Text: Alex R. Howe (NASA/USRA,
                         Science Meets Fiction Blog)

   Explanation: This hot jupiter is doomed. Hot jupiters are giant planets
   like Jupiter that orbit much closer to their parent stars than Mercury
   does to our Sun. But some hot jupiters are more extreme than others.
   NGTS-10b, illustrated generically, is the closest and fastest-orbiting
   giant planet yet discovered, circling its home star in only 18 hours.
   NGTS-10b is a little larger than Jupiter, but it orbits less than two
   times the diameter of its parent star away from the star’s surface.
   When a planet orbits this close, it is expected to spiral inward,
   pulled down by tidal forces to be eventually ripped apart by the star’s
   gravity. NGTS-10b, discovered by researchers at the University of
   Warwick, is named after the ESO’s Next Generation Transit Survey, which
   detected the imperiled planet when it passed in front of its star,
   blocking some of the light. Although the violent demise of NGTS-10b
   will happen eventually, we don't yet know when.

                       Tomorrow's picture: open space
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