Letters from the January 6, 2007, issue of Science News
By Science News
Gone with the heat?
“Feeling the heat of an extrasolar planet” (SN: 10/28/06, p. 285) made me wonder how long a gas planet is expected to survive when one of its faces is more than 1,000°C. The conventional model of our solar system assumes that gas planets can form and survive only in a cold region of space. This implies that Upsilon Andromedae b moved to its present position after it had formed and that it is now evaporating rapidly.