



According to the July 15, 2010 NASA article ' NASA Finds Super Hot Planet with Unique Comet-Like Tail ,' NASA astronomers have discovered, with the use of the Hubble Space Telescope , a ''¦ baked object that could be called a 'cometary planet."'The gas giant planet, named HD 209458b, is orbiting so close to its star that its heated atmosphere is escaping into space.'The planet is about 153 light-years from Earth, has a mass slightly less than the mass of our own gas giant planet Jupiter, and orbits its star about one hundred times closer than Jupiter orbits the Sun.And, it orbits even closer than the nearest planet to the Sun, Mercury, in our own Solar System.HD 209458b orbits its star (HD 209458) once every 3.5 days, while Mercury orbits the Sun once every 88 days.The Cosmic Origins Spectograph (COS), which is part of the series of instruments onboard Hubble, took the images that show ''¦ powerful stellar winds are sweeping the cast-off atmospheric material behind the scorched planet and shaping it into a comet-like tail. 'Dr. Jeffrey LInsky, an astronomer with the University of Colorado (Boulder) and one of the scientists with the COS study, stated within the article: 'Since 2003 scientists have theorized the lost mass is being pushed back into a tail, and they have even calculated what it looks like. We think we have the best observational evidence to support that theory. We have measured gas coming off the planet at specific speeds, some coming toward Earth. The most likely interpretation is that we have measured the velocity of material in a tail."The results of their observations of the extrasolor planet (or exoplanet) HD 209458b is published in the July 10, 2010 issue (volume 717, number 2; doi: 10.1088/0004-637X/717/2/1291) of The Astrophysical Journal, under the title ' Observations of Mass Loss from the Transiting Exoplanet HD 209458B .'Page two continues.





The University of Colorado astronomers state in the abstract to their paper, 'Using the new Cosmic Origins Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope, we obtained moderate-resolution, high signal/noise ultraviolet spectra of HD 209458 and its exoplanet HD 209458b during transit, both orbital quadratures, and secondary eclipse.'And, 'We compare transit spectra with spectra obtained at non-transit phases to identify spectral features due to the exoplanet's expanding atmosphere.'Further, 'Assuming hydrodynamic model values for the gas temperature and outflow velocity at the limb of the outflow as seen in the C II lines, we find mass-loss rates in the range (8-40)Ã—10gs-1 (grams per second).These rates assume that the carbon abundance is solar, which is not the case for the giant planets in the solar system. Our mass-loss rate estimate is consistent with theoretical hydrodynamic models that include metals in the outflowing gas."Specifically, the COS instrument found carbon and silicon in the planet's atmosphere, a atmosphere that is as hot as 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1093 degrees Celsius).The outflow of material from the exoplanet is not flowing out at the same speed however.Dr. Linsky explains, "We found gas escaping at high velocities, with a large amount of this gas flowing toward us at 22,000 miles [35,400 kilometers] per hour. This large gas flow is likely gas swept up by the stellar wind to form the comet-like tail trailing the planet."Page three concludes.





The NASA article also make this interesting observation: 'Although this extreme planet is being roasted by its star, it won't be destroyed anytime soon."Dr. Kinsky adds, 'It will take about a trillion years for the planet to evaporate,"The MSNBC article 'S corched alien planet has a comet tail ' furthers the story, plus adds an artist's interpretation of what the comet-like planet looks like with respect to its star.