Hot Jupiters

[TheDayman]

I don't think I've ever seen them. Sure, I've seen Gas Giants that are hot, but none that are relatively close to their star. Has anyone else? Are they not as common as we are lead to believe? I see that a lot of new planets are being found, most of them are hot Jupiters so this would lead you to believe that they should be pretty common in Elite as well, no? Have I just not been looking close enough?

And is/was Mercury thought to have once been a hot Jupiter that just had it's gas blown away leaving the metal core?

 

[Allitnil]

They aren't exactly common, but there are plenty around, including some extreme examples such as those orbiting close to neutron stars (see for example https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=131543). Any Class V gas giant is a 'hot Jupiter'.

As I understand it, the search for exo-planets mostly involves observing either the star orbiting the barycentre of it and a large companion planet or the reduction in light being received from distant stars. Since hot Jupiters are large, close to their parent stars and have short orbits they are relatively easy to observe by either method. Hence, most of the exo-planets found to date are hot Jupiters. Compare finding them to observing the Earth from a few hundred light years away. It is small and a long way from Sol so doesn't much affect either the Sun's orbit nor the amount of light - and both require an observation period of several years to gather enough data.

 

[Jon flint]

There's a hot Jupiter in-game orbiting 51 Pegasi. On a side note it was the first extrasolar planet discovered Can't recall the distance from the parent star, but it's pretty close.

 

[TheDayman]

Thanks guys - have some rep

 

[Reido]

As I understand it, the current theory regarding the formation of Metel-Rich worlds like Mercury is that early in a systems evolution there may be quite a number of very small planets orbiting very close to the star. I believe it's speculated that there may have been between 4-6 of these inside the current orbit of Mercury. The orbital speeds are very fast and because the orbits are also unstable these small planets collide and the metal core merge with the result that lighter rocky dust gets blown away by the solar wind and the heavier rocky material gets pulled in the star.

As these merged metal cores get larger they migrate out a little farther due to there now higher mass and collide with other small inner planets and the process continues until things stabilize with a planet somewhat like Mercury and the Metal-Rich worlds we see in-game.


CMDR Andrew Reid

 

[frostypaw]

There are some very close gas giants that I've seen already

according to the nav...

So that's under 3Ls from the centre of that sun - who cares if it's a dwarf that must be pretty toasty