Planet hotter than most stars spotted 25 light years away
Technology

Planet hotter than most stars spotted 25 light years away


star and planet

Computer artwork of a “hot Jupiter” and its parent star

DETLEV VAN RAVENSWAAY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Astronomers may have detected a planet around a nearby star – potentially the second hottest exoplanet ever found.

Spencer Hurt at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and his colleagues used 10 years of observations of Vega, a bright star just 25 light years from our solar system, to look for the telltale gravitational tug of planets.

They were able to spot a potential world that orbits the star every 2.43 Earth days, at a distance 10 times closer than Mercury orbits the sun. It has a …



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