The Planet That Should Not Be. Kelper 78b.

Kepler 78b: What The Hellscape?

        

        

       Anybody remember Pluto? The planet that well...used to be a planet. Talk about an identity crisis right? Well what about Kepler 78b? Scientist's are saying this Earth-like exoplanet shouldn't even exist! Sheesh, harsh...

       But they have good reason, in order for a planet like this to exist it would have to have formed within the star in the constellation of Cygnus itself. The other possibility is that it came in from another orbit and muscled it's way up to the star. Guess he needed to warm up by the fire huh? Scientists are scratching their heads, completely baffled by this mystery planet.

      

        So, I mentioned Earth-like right? Not another Earth itself as Kepler 78b is certainly not hospitable (not for life as we know it anyway) as the surface temperature reaches 2000 degrees celsius. (And not an air conditioner in sight!) That's plenty hot enough to melt anything we have on our humble little rock. So why is it so FREAKIN' SCORCHIN'?

       Kepler 78b orbits it's sign pretty close, astronomically speaking anyway, at relatively a million miles from it. To put that in perspective, since the Earth's orbit is elliptical we average about 93 million miles from our sun. (consequently 93 million miles is shortened to 1AU or astronomical unit for ease) So that 92 million miles makes a significant distance in a lot of areas. We have seasons, Kepler, likely does not. A year here, 365 right? Everyone knows that. One year there? 8.5 hours. Imagine tax season on a planet like that!

        Well thanks to the Kepler telescope data launched in 2009 and a team of astronomer's we finally get a chance to analyze this planet. Which is good, because it isn't going to last very long. Once again, astronomically speaking. In a few billion years Kepler 78b is going to break about from the intense conditions it undergoes. Guess they should've named the poor guy Icarus.

        So...if it's going to be around for a few billion years, then why is it such a big deal to study it now? To us that sounds like a really long time, but in order to effectively study objects and planets such as this requires proximity and this exoplanet lies around 400 lightyears from earth. How far is a lightyear? 5,878,499,810,000 miles (five.8 trillion). Multiply that by 400. (The Proclaimers eat your heart out)

        So let's put it all in perspective now. The Kepler telescope launched in 2009, but we're just discovering it in 2013. That's four years, and there's a ton of data to sift through. But hopefully scientists can get it all figured out for us. Luckily they intend to stick to it so in the near future we'll learn much more about this interesting hellscape in the sky. There are many articles throughout the internet if you're interested in knowing more about this planet and Wikipedia has some very accurate information condensed from what you'll find in those various articles. I encourage you to read more on this.

        With hundreds of new Earth-like worlds being discovered throughout the universe everyday Kepler 78b is just one of many examples of how confounding our universe can be. And who knows...maybe life as we know it will become life as we couldn't have imagined. guess we'll just have to wait and see.