A PLANET with a fiery comet-like tail has been discovered in a distant solar system.
The gas giant HD 209458bm is orbiting so close to its star that its heated atmosphere is streaming into space.
Observations by the Hubble Space Telescope suggest that powerful stellar winds are sweeping the atmospheric material behind the scorched planet.
“We have measured gas coming off the planet at specific speeds, some coming toward Earth,” said astronomer Dr Jeffrey Linsky, from the University of Colorado at Boulder, in the US.
“The most likely interpretation is that we have measured the velocity of material in a tail.”
The planet, located 153 light years from Earth, weighs slightly less than Jupiter but is 100 times closer to its parent star.
It completes an orbit in just 3.5 days, much faster than Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, which makes the same journey in 88 days.
The planet’s atmosphere reaches temperatures of more than 1,000°C.
