JERUSALEM, Aug. 14-- An international team of astronomers has discovered a hot Jupiter with an extreme temperature difference between its two sides, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy.
"Hot Jupiter" is a term used by astronomers to describe a category of exoplanets that are physically similar to the gas giant planet Jupiter but orbit very close to their stars.
The intense radiation from their stars causes hot Jupiters' extremely high surface temperatures.
Na'ama Hallakoun, an astronomer from the Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS) leading the study, said in a report on the website of WIS that they discovered, about 1,400 light years away from the Earth, a hot Jupiter orbiting a white dwarf, the remnant core of a star that has burned up all of its nuclear fuel.
Hallakoun said it is possible to see and study this object because it is very large compared to the host star it orbits, which is 10,000 times fainter than a normal star.
The study also found that the hot Jupiter's day side is about 7,000 to 9,500 degrees Celsius, more than 2,000 degrees Celsius hotter than the surface of our sun, while its night side is only 1,000 to 2,700 degrees Celsius.
This difference of about 6,000 degrees Celsius is the largest ever seen in a hot Jupiter.
"This makes it a perfect laboratory for future studies of hot Jupiters' extreme conditions," Hallakoun added.