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We already know A good handful of exoplanetsbut astronomers of the European Space Agency have just added a fascinating category to the catalog of strange worlds.
The Kamikaze planets. Using the Cheops space telescope, The first exoplature observatory of EuropeESA researchers have first observed a planet that causes flares in their own star, a suicidal custom that will end up sealing their own destiny.
The “Kamikaze planets” are actually a phenomenon of cosmic self -destruction that has been theorizing since the 1990s. But it had never been observed directly, so far. And what astronomers have seen is a hundred times more energy than anyone had imagined.
A violent neighborhood. The protagonist of this story is Hip 67522, a solar system located about 490 light years from Earth. Its star is a bit larger and cold than our sun, but it is very different: while the sun exceeds median age with 4.5 billion years, Hip 67522 is a teenage star of just 17 million years.
Like any teenager, this star is full of energy, with a very agitated nucleus that does not stop turning, which makes it a very potent magnet. Around this violent cosmic magnet two planets turn. The one that interests us is the closest, Hip 67522 B, a world that completes an orbit in just seven days.
The planet that plays with fire. Since they began to discover exoplanets, astronomers wonder if there are worlds orbiting enough close to their star to disturb their magnetic field and, in essence, “prick it” so that great flares are unleashed. Cheops space telescope observations They demonstrated that the planet Hip 67522 B is so close to its star that its own magnetic influence interacts with that of its host.
The planet acts as a whip: as the star orbits, energy is accumulated in the form of waves along the lines of the star magnetic field. When these energy waves collide with the surface of the star, they trigger a gigantic solar flare, much more violent than expected. And absolutely destructive for the planet.
Up to 15 lashes captured in camera. The Cheops telescope detected a total of 15 flares, almost all produced while the planet was ahead of the star from our perspective. This synchronization is the definitive proof: the fact that the flares occur just when the planet passes between us and the star confirms that it is the planet who is causing them.
The tragic part of this story is that the planet is causing these gigantic energy explosions in its own direction. Hip 67522 B is being bombarded with six times more radiation than I would receive if it would simply stay still. The planet is shrinking. According to astronomers, in the next 100 million years it could go from being a gaseous giant of Jupiter’s size to a planet of Neptune size. It is a slow -chanted cosmic suicide.
Image | THAT
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