NASA Finds Super Hot Planet With Unique Comet-Like Tail

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Source:  NASA News
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have confirmed the existence of a baked object that could be called a "cometary planet" ... gas giant ... HD 209458b, ... orbiting so close to its star that its heated atmosphere is escaping into space. Observations taken with Hubble's Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) suggest powerful stellar winds are sweeping the cast-off atmospheric material behind the scorched planet and shaping it into a comet-like tail. …The planet, located 153 light years from Earth, weighs slightly less than Jupiter but orbits 100 times closer to its star than the Jovian giant ... zips around its star in a short 3.5 days. …Linsky and his team used COS to analyze the planet's atmosphere during transiting events.
www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/jul/HQ_10-167_Hubble_Finds_Planet.html 

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