Exoplanets are planets that orbits stars located outside our solar system. They are gas giants and rocky. They can big or small. So far, 5000 plus exoplanets have been discovered.
WASP-103b is an exoplanet that was discovered in 2014. It orbits an F-type main sequence star and is located at a distance of 1,225 light years away from Earth in the constellation Hercules. Its host star WASP-103 is 200 degree hotter and 1.7 times larger than our Sun. It is a Hot Jupiter, which means it orbits very close to its star and is a gas giant planet. It is twice the size of Jupiter & is 20 times hotter than Jupiter. That’s why it falls in another category of exoplanets called Ultra Hot-Jupiter. It is also a Ultra Short Period planet, which means it completes its orbit in less than a day. It completes its orbit around its host star in 22 hours.
What makes this exoplanet unique is its shape. Using European Space Agency’s CHEOPS (Characterizing Exoplanets Satellite) space telescope; astronomers have discovered that WASP-103b is shaped like a rugby ball or a potato. Out of all the exoplanets discovered so far it is the first that isn’t a sphere. WASP-103b is deformed to its rugby ball shape by strong tidal forces between the planet and its host star. Since it is very close to its star, this exoplanet is tidally locked with its host star, which means it does not rotate on its axis but revolves around the host star with one side always facing towards the star. This makes the one side or dayside very hot and other side cold in comparison to day side. Back in 2018, a study of the complete orbit of WASP-103b was conducted using the NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope that enabled scientist to detect dayside temperatures of between 2000-3000 degree Celsius.
