Belief in God In an Age of Science Discoveries from Mars Planets & DNA

It's a discovery that not only explains what is happening to WASP-12b, it also means scientists have a one-of-a-kind opportunity to observe how a planet enters this final stage of its life.
"This is the first time that astronomers are witnessing the ongoing disruption and death march of a planet," said Douglas N.C. Lin, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz. Lin is a coauthor of the new study and the founding director of the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics (KIAA) at Peking University, which was deeply involved with the research. The findings are being published in the February 25 issue of Nature.
The research was led by Shu-lin Li of the National Astronomical Observatories of China. A graduate of KIAA, Li and a team of researchers analyzed observational data on the planet to show how the gravity of its parent star is both inflating its size and spurring its rapid dissolution.
WASP-12b, discovered in 2008, is one of the most enigmatic of the 400-plus planets that have been found outside our Solar System over the past 15 years. It orbits a star in the constellation Auriga that is roughly similar in mass to our Sun. Like most known extrasolar planets, it is large and gaseous, resembling Jupiter and Saturn in this respect. But unlike Jupiter, Saturn, or most other extrasolar planets, it orbits its parent star at extremely close range--75 times closer than the Earth is to the Sun, or just over 1 million miles. It is also larger than astrophysical models would predict. Its mass is estimated to be almost 50 percent larger than Jupiter's and its volume is six times Jupiter's. It is also unusually hot, with a daytime temperature of more than 2500 degrees Celsius.
Some mechanism must be responsible for expanding this planet to such an unexpected size, say the researchers. They have focused their analysis on tidal forces, which they say are strong enough to produce the effects observed on WASP-12b.
On Earth, tidal forces between the Earth and the Moon cause local sea levels rise and fall modestly twice a day. WASP-12b, however, is so close to its host star that the gravitational forces are enormous. The tremendous tidal forces acting on the planet completely change its shape into something similar to that of a rugby or American football.

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