Daily Ripping A Tight Orbit, Around Its Host "Sun" -- This Large, Odd Exoplanet (WASP 103b) Is Tugged Into An Ovoid Shape...

Its host star is about twice as massive as our Sol. . . and WASP 103b orbits very close to it (so the planet is twenty times hotter than Jupiter). And so, the tug (and heat) is enough to very visibly distort it, way out of round. We do know that both our Saturn, and Jupiter, spin so rapidly that the centrifugal force alone makes them slightly wider at their equators. So too, Earth, but imperceptibly to the naked eye.

This one, however -- looks much more like an egg, or a rugby ball, even. It is vastly out of round. And that's a first for ESA's Cheops and the space science world, more generally, thus:

. . .The planet, known as WASP-103b is located in the constellation of Hercules. It has been deformed by the strong tidal forces between the planet and its host star WASP-103, which is about 200 degrees hotter and 1.7 times larger than the Sun. . . .

In truth, these sorts of discoveries fire my imagination -- and reassure me, at some visceral level, that one day we will know there is life out there. . . and that life will be far-wiser than we are. Perhaps they will help us see that in the main, we are killing our host world, and thus ourselves. Onward, in any event.



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