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Extrasolar planet with wild temperature swings observed

Science Centric (28 Jan 2009 21:40 GMT) - NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has observed a planet that heats up to red-hot temperatures in a matter of hours before quickly cooling back down. The 'hot-headed' planet is HD 80606b, a gas giant that orbits a star 190 light-years from Earth. It was already known to be quite unusual, with an orbit shuttling it nearly as far out as Earth is from our sun, and much closer in than our planet Mercury. Astronomers used Spitzer, an infrared observatory, to measure heat emanating from the planet as it whipped behind and close to its star. In just six hours, the planet's temperature rose from 800 to 1,500 Kelvin (980 to 2,240 degrees Fahrenheit)…

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