An extrasolar giant planet with a day that lasts only eight hours – País.com (Spain)

id=”cuerpo_noticia”> From extrasolar planets, in addition to discovering more and more every day, astronomers are observing new features ever more precise data which not long ago seemed impossible to obtain but are accessible resulting with advanced telescopes and ingenious strategies cameras observing scientists. The latest development is the direct measurement of the length of day in a giant extrasolar planet who meets a complete rotation on its axis every eight hours. It is a gaseous body discovered six years orbiting Beta Pictoris, a star located about 63 light-years away from Earth. To get an idea of ​​how quickly the body turns blue, and the brevity of their day-just compare their speed (100,000 kilometers per hour in Ecuador) with the Earth (1674.4 kph) and Jupiter (47,000 kilometers per hour measured in the equatorial atmosphere).

Beta Pictoris b, the planet as it is called, is much larger than Jupiter, with a radius of 1.65 times and a mass 10 times greater; compared to the Earth, is 16 times more massive 3,000. It is still very young (about 20 million years, compared to about 4,500 million years of our planet) and hot, so astronomers expect that, as cool and shrink, increase its rotation (for conservation of angular momentum, the same effect that makes a skater spin faster on himself when his arms about the body), explains the Observatorio European (ESO) , which together with VLT telescopes in Chile, astronomers have been able to take new measures Beta Pictoris b. Ignas A. G. Snellen ( University of Leiden , the Netherlands) and colleagues presented these new data on extrasolar planet magazine Nature.

“No one knows why some planets spin faster and some slower, but this first step of the rotation of an exoplanet shows that the trend observed in the solar system, where the most massive planets spin faster, it is also true for extrasolar; should be a universal consequence of the way in which these bodies are formed, “says Remco J. de Kok, one of the astronomers of the team. Yes, in the Solar System, “escape from this trend Mercury and Venus, significantly slowed due to gravitational interaction with the Sun and other disturbances,” said Travis Barman, an expert from the University of Arizona , commenting Nature about the discovery.

Beta Pictoris b is an extrasolar planet known to astronomers. Discovered six years ago, was one of the first to be able to shoot straight. Its star is about eight times the distance between Earth and the Sun

In his observations accuracy Snellen and his colleagues have used the technique of spectroscopy to separate the light from the planet in their constituents, different wavelengths, and are based on Doppler color (wavelength seemingly stretches is or shrinks depending on whether the issuer or away About observer) to measure how different parts of the world move at different speeds and in different directions. So they have managed to extract your data signal the planet’s rotation. “We measured the wavelengths emitted by the planet with an accuracy of one part in 100,000,” says Snellen. “With this technique we have found that different parts of the planet’s surface are moving to or from us at different speeds, which can only mean that is rotating around its axis.” The astronomer added that this observation technique can be applied in many more extrasolar planets with high resolution will the future European giant telescope E-ELT.

All the knowledge you are gaining on extrasolar planets allow unravel formation processes of planetary systems in the universe. “The rotation of the planets is something we notice every day on Earth to rise and set in the sky the sun, moon, planets and stars” recalls Barman. “Of the planets in our solar system five rapidly rotating in the same direction as they orbit around the Sun; is unlikely to be by chance and reflects important but poorly understood how planets form aspects, “adds the scientist from the University of Arizona, emphasizing the importance of this research.