Sure, I had a freshman astronomy class, but it was weeks before I got the textbook. A couple weeks before the mid-term exam, the professor got a little agitated about how many of us didn't have textbooks yet. He warned us, "What are you going to to the day before the mid-term when you don't have the textbook?!"
To which I replied, "Well, I'm just hoping for a clear night."
I guess he couldn't stay mad after that. He laughed.
My point is, I have no basis for challenging astronomy stories like this one about a dying planet:
The star is called WASP-18 and the planet is WASP-18b because of the Wide Angle Search for Planets team that found them.
The planet circles a star that is in the constellation Phoenix and is about 325 light-years away from Earth, which means it is in our galactic neighborhood. A light-year is about 5.8 trillion miles.
The planet is 1.9 million miles from its star, 1/50th of the distance between Earth and the sun, our star. And because of that the temperature is about 3,800 degrees.
Its size — 10 times bigger than Jupiter — and its proximity to its star make it likely to die, Hellier said.
I read this stuff a lot--some massive planet so close to its star that it circles it in a day or so.
I call bullshit.
I just don't buy it that there are massive planets whizzing around stars that fast.
There has to be some basic mistake in the theory that lets them plug in their observed data and get that result. I'm just saying.
