While it may be only 30 Seconds to Mars, that is certainly not the case with this new planet. Approximately 490 light years away from Earth, a planet three times the size of Jupiter has just been discovered and scientists are naming it TOI-1431b.
It doesn’t quite roll off the tongue as easily as Jupiter does, but maybe because the too-hot-to-handle is one of the hottest ever discovered, with temperatures of 3000K during the day.
“This is a very hellish world. Dayside temperature of about 3,000K (approximately 2,700 degrees C) and nightside temperature approaching 2,600K (approximately 2,300 degrees C). No life could survive in its atmosphere. In fact, the planet’s nightside temperature is the second hottest ever measured!” astrophysicist Brett Addison from the University of Southern Queensland’s Centre for Astrophysics in Toowoomba, who led the team of scientists that helped confirm the planet’s existence, told CNET.
The planet is hotter than the melting point of most metals and hotter than molten lava. In fact, the dayside temperature of the planet is hotter than 40 percent of stars in the Milky Way galaxy. The temperature of the planet is approaching that of the exhaust from a rocket engine.”
NASA has discovered this planet using TESS, their Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. According to Addison, these very hot planets, called ultra-hot Jupiters, are very rare to come by, which convinced NASA to perform months of thorough data analysis before confirming it as a planet.
The reason for it being so hot is due to the fact that the planets’ orbit is only two and a half days long and it sits very close to its bright star. One can imagine that a planet with a temperature almost 53 times higher than the hottest recorded temperature on Earth (-56.7C) isn’t worth planning your holiday around.
In fact, TOI-1431b wasn’t always where it is now. Scientists have found that it migrated over to its host star over time to form its very tight orbit. Unlike other planets in our solar system that rotate in the same direction as the sun, this planet rotates in the opposite direction to its star, making it a truly unique discovery.
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