S3 EP6: Travelling to Exoplanet HD 80606b

In today's episode, we will talk about an exoplanet located about 217 light years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. It’s called HD 80606b and was discovered in 2001 with transit method found to be revolving around HD 80606 star. Before i dive into further details about this exoplanet, i want to tell you about exoplanets. An exoplanet is just like any other planet in our solar system. The only difference is that they don't revolve around our Sun but rather than that they revolve around a whole different star. Unlike the planets in our solar system, which are terrestrial and gas giants only, these exoplanets can be of various types. And HD 80606b is a type of exoplanet called Hot Jupiter. A Hot Jupiter is a gas giant like Jupiter in our solar system. They are physically similar to Jupiter but due to the difference in their orbital periods, they are different from normal gas giants like Jupiter. The closer a planet is to its host star, the faster it revolves. Thus, the Hot Jupiter have small orbital periods, meaning seasons change faster on them. And they are HOTTTT.
HD 80606b mass is about 4 times that of Jupiter but its density is slightly less than that of Earth. Due to its extremely eccentric orbit around the host star, its revolution is just like that of a comet. Sometimes its very closer to the host stars and sometimes due to far stretched out orbit, it is far from the star. This is why it takes 111 days to finish one orbit around HD 80606. To any observer standing on the clouds of this gas giant, its host star would appear 30 times bigger than how Sun appears in our Earth's sky. Computer models have predicted that the temperature change on this exoplanet happens very quickly in just a matter of hours as the temperature could rise up to 280°C. Recently James Webb Space Telescope has discovered that when the planet is close to its star, the temperature skyrockets to 600°C. This was from me for this episode. 

Episode Cover Art