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An alien world near Earth is being trail by a gigantic keister , stretching longer than 40 terra firma as it tight circle its household star . The tremendous structure , which is made up of throttle leaking from the exoplanet ’s aura , is being blown by prima wind instrument like a giant " windsock , " experts say .
The exoplanet , WASP-69 b , is a gas giant . It ’s around the same size of it as Jupiter but less than a third as massive , and orbit a chief chronological sequence lead roughly 160 calorie-free - years from Earth . It is very near to its star , make out a single trip around the alien sun every 3.9 days .
New research has shown that the gas giant exoplanet WASP-69 b has a 350,000-mile-long tail of gas trailing in its wake. The gas leaks from the alien world’s atmosphere due to the exoplanet’s close proximity to its sun, and is blown into a tail by stellar wind.
Since its discovery in 2014 , researchers have find that WASP-69 b is losing up to 200,000 tons ( 180,000 metric tons ) of mostly He and some hydrogen gas per second , which is probable being lose as a result of it being superheated by the exoplanet ’s lead . At this rate , the exoplanet has likely lost up to seven Earth masses during its lifetime , which has lasted around 7 billion years .
scientist previously theorize thatWASP-69 b might have a comet - like tailmade up of some of the gas it leaks into space , but this had never been confirmed . However , in a study published Jan. 9 in the journalAstronomy and Astrophysics , researchers analyzed the alien humankind using data point from the W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea , Hawaii to precisely mensurate the planet and its surroundings , and found that it really did have a rear that stretch up to 350,000 miles ( 560,000 kilometer ) long — more or less 44 time as long as Earth is wide .
" Previous observations suggested that WASP-69 b had a modest tail , or no seat at all , " study lead-in authorDakotah Tyler , an doctoral candidate in astrophysics at UCLA , said in astatementreleased at the clock time . " However , we have been able to definitively show that this planet ’s helium tail extends at least seven clip the spoke of the giant [ exo]planet itself . "
Stellar wind is the driving force behind WASP-69 b’s tail, allowing researchers to use the gaseous structure as a “windsock” to learn more about these stellar gusts.
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WASP-69 b ’s tail forms when " star winding " blows the leaking gas by from the exoplanet , create a trail in its aftermath . leading idle words , similar to the sun ’s solar wind , is a flow of charged corpuscle that are perpetually being bickering out by the star topology . If the leading wind were to disappear , then the tail would also pass off away , researchers wrote .
" If the astral wind were to sharpen down , then you could imagine that the major planet is still losing some of its standard atmosphere , but it just is n’t getting shaped into the tail , " Tyler said in a newNASA statementreleased Dec. 10 . Without the stellar wind , that gun escaping on all sides of the planet would be spherical and symmetrical , he said . " But if you crank up the stellar wind instrument , that air then gets sculpture into a tail . "
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The find could help us learn more about how gas giant form and evolve over time , and also provides scientist with a rare chance to measure the starring wind of distant stars by using the tail like a giant " windsock,“NASArepresentatives spell in the statement .
" These comet - similar tails are really valuable because they constitute when the get away air of the planet rams into the starring wind , which causes the petrol to be sweep back , " study co - authorErik Petigura , a professor of physics and uranology at UCLA , say in the early instruction . " Observing such an extended tail provide us to study these interaction in great point . "
