In 2017, an international team of astronomers identified a globe comparable to Jupiter that is being evaporated by its own star. KELT-9b is one of the hottest gas giants ever found and is uninhabitable.
The planet’s daylight surface temperature exceeds 4,000 Kelvin, making it one of the hottest exoplanets ever discovered. It is located approximately 650 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Cygnus.
Its host star, KELT-9, is considerably hotter; evaporation is likely unravelling the planet. The star is only 300 million years old, is more than twice as massive as the sun, and is nearly twice as hot. According to experts, the star emits so much ultraviolet radiation that it may vaporise the planet entirely. According to scientists, the planet may even be leaving a comet-like tail of vaporised planet material.
667 light-years away, a fiery planet races around its star in less than two days. KELT-9 b experiences two summers and two winters every year, or orbit, with each lasting about 9 hours. These seasons vary, but go from hot to hotter. https://t.co/RpHQIM9esM pic.twitter.com/oQbhv16ih3
— NASA Exoplanets (@NASAExoplanets) February 2, 2023
Another peculiar feature of KELT-9b is that its orbit is perpendicular to the spin axis of its host star, and its year is shorter than two days.
