Where a year lasts only 16 hours
The ultra-hot exoplanet TOI-2109b is a celestial body of extremes. Among other things, it orbits its star in record time.
At a distance of 850 light-years, an exoplanet races around its star in record time and its fate is already predetermined: TOI-2109b orbits its sun in just 16 hours while being very quickly attracted to it. In an astronomically short time, it will finally merge with the star, Ian Wong of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and his team write in the Astronomical Journal. With this very short year, the gas giant again undercuts the previous record holder by two hours.
TOI-2109b is an ultra-hot gas giant that is five times more massive than Jupiter. Its diameter is also 35 percent larger. At the same time it is at a distance from its star 20 times smaller than Mercury, but this makes the planet extremely hot. On the day side, the temperatures are at least 3000 degrees Celsius, which makes it an ultra-hot Jupiter. So far, only one planet is known to be even hotter, with a surface temperature of 4300 degrees Celsius.
The proximity to its star also means that the celestial body is approaching its end faster than any other known planet, writes the working group. Every year, the orbital velocity decreases by another second. In about ten million years, the star will have swallowed the gas giant, according to Wong and Co.
Because of its high temperature and the brightness of the star, the exoplanet is easy to observe. Above all its atmosphere could be so well examined. It was discovered with the help of NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).
Spectrum of Science
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