(Viewed 1,083 times)

[Herb]

I saw a show on one of the science channels the other night and they said that this planet was between 3-5 times more massive than Jupiter.

The show also said that its orbit only take 4 days.

My question is, why dosn't the angular momentom tear the planet apart?

Clear Skies all.

[Centaur]

Herb said:

I saw a show on one of the science channels the other night and they said that this planet was between 3-5 times more massive than Jupiter.

The show also said that its orbit only take 4 days.

My question is, why dosn't the angular momentom tear the planet apart?

I assume you are referring to the planet’s orbital angular momentum and not its rotational angular momentum. What matters is the Roche limit, which is a distance that is a function of the star’s mass and the chemical composition of the planet. With no other details, the four-day orbital period likely places the planet beyond its Roche limit. At a typical Roche limit the orbital period would be hours.

[Maddad]

Think I remembe reading about that planet a week or so ago. It's a hot Jupiter, a gas giant orbiting close to its star. We've found a bunch of them, mostly because our detection methods work better with a larger planet, and one that is closer to its star. The planet is certainly massive, but not enough to fuse deturium. It would have to mass 14 Jupiters for that, and 80 for fusing ordinary hydrogen. It missed becoming a star of its own by about three to twenty seven times its mass.