The exoplanet WASP-69b has a comet-like tail that’s 350,000 miles long, which is seven times the length of the planet itself. The tail is the result of the planet’s atmosphere being burned off as it orbits a hot star and stretched by stellar winds

The discovery was made possible by observations from a 10-meter telescope at the WM Keck Observatory in Hawaii. The telescope’s high-resolution spectrograph can precisely map changes in light wavelength and frequency. 

WASP-69b is a hot Jupiter that orbits its host star at a very close range, completing a full orbit in less than four Earth days

Gas giant exoplanet WASP-69b has captured the attention of astronomers, this time because of the trail of gas it’s leaving behind – a tail that’s some seven times longer than the planet’s radius

WASP-69b is 160 light-years away from Earth. It takes 3.9 Earth days for one year to pass on this planet

WASP-69b is about 10% larger than Jupiter, but only 30% as massive. It’s mostly made of gas, and has a radius slightly larger than Jupiter. However, its mass is less than a third of Jupiter’s

WASP-69 b certainly fits the bill: It is about 10 percent bigger than Jupiter— though only 30 percent its mass — and orbits its star at a distance just less than five percent the distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun

WASP-69b is a gas giant exoplanet that orbits a K-type star. It’s about 10% larger than Jupiter, but only 30% its mass. It’s located 160 light-years from Earth and takes 3.9 Earth days to complete one orbit of its star. 

WASP-69b’s close proximity to its star subjects it to extreme radiation, causing its atmosphere to burn off. This radiation also creates a 350,000-mile long, comet-like tail behind the planet. 

WASP-69b was discovered in 2013 and its discovery was announced in 2014

The WASP (wide angle search for planets) project uses two instruments to automatically take wide field images of the night sky. The project has been monitoring the night sky since 2004, building up light curves of millions of objects. 

The planet WASP-69 b was discovered based on ground-based detections of the subtle, periodic dimming of light from its host star as the planet transits, or passes in front of the star

The team conducted their research using another NIRSPEC — the high-resolution spectrograph on the 10-meter telescope at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. Spectrographs split light into its component wavelengths, allowing researchers to identify atoms and molecules, as well as their behavior

It’s such a giant planet that its star will be gone long before all of its atmosphere disappears into space. “At around 90 times the mass of Earth, WASP-69b has such a large reservoir of material that even losing this enormous amount of mass won’t affect it much over the course of its life,” says Tyler

The W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii has two telescopes with 10-meter aperture primary mirrors. The Keck Planet Finder (KPF) is a high-resolution spectrometer that operates on the Keck I Telescope. The KPF is used to search for Earth-sized planets around other stars. 

The Keck Interferometer, which is made up of the linked telescopes at the W. M. Keck Observatory, is the world’s largest optical telescope system. The Keck telescopes have made many discoveries, including: 

• Measuring the size of a distant world that is about the size of Uranus 
• Discovering four quasars (galaxies powered by black holes) in a single system The W. M. Keck Observatory also has a public viewing gallery and a visitor center with free admission and a wheelchair accessible entrance and parking lot.

The Keck Observatory has contributed to many areas of astronomy and astrophysics, including:

• Exoplanets In 2008, the Keck Observatory captured the first direct images of an exoplanet. 
• Quasars The Keck Observatory has discovered four quasars, which are galaxies powered by black holes. One of these quasars is 1,000 times brighter than the Milky Way Galaxy and was observed 670 million years after the Big Bang. 
• Dark energy In 2005, the Keck Observatory and other telescopes observed supernovas to chart the rate at which the universe is expanding. Measurements indicated the universe’s expansion is accelerating, fueled by a mysterious process called “dark energy”. 
• Gliese 581g Using the HIRES spectrometer on the Keck I Telescope, astronomers discovered an Earth-sized planet, Gliese 581g, orbiting a nearby star. 
• Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 In 1994, the Keck Observatory imaged the collision between the remnants of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 and Jupiter. Other discoveries by the Keck Observatory include:
  • The study of how planets, stars, and galaxies form 
  • The nature of black holes 
  • The chemical composition and evolution of the Universe 
  • The discovery of ‘L’ and ‘T’ type dwarf stars 

In 2013, Keck was used to confirm the discovery of the first Earth-sized planet outside the Solar System that has a rocky composition like that of Earth. Kepler-78b was discovered using data from NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, and confirmed and characterized with the W. M. Keck Observatory

The exoplanet WASP-69b has a 350,000-mile-long tail because of its close proximity to its host star. The star’s stellar wind is a fast-moving stream of particles that pushes gas out of the planet’s atmosphere. The escaping atmosphere then collides with the star’s wind, forming a helium tail. 

The tail is similar to the tails that comets develop when they enter the inner solar system. The star’s wind heats the planet’s atmosphere and sends it flying off in the opposite direction of the star. 

Observing the tail can help scientists understand how the planet’s atmosphere interacts with its star, which can shed light on the evolution of planets

Blowing in the wind – in the same way that the solar wind from our Sun creates the beautiful tails that sprout off comets when they swing into the inner solar system, WASP-69’s wind is heating the atmosphere of WASP-69 b and sending it flying off the planet in a direction opposite the host star

According to the New York Times, WASP-69b may be losing 200,000 tons of mass every second, but it will still retain most of its atmosphere

WASP-69b’s tail is caused by the planet’s atmosphere evaporating due to irradiation from its hot star. The star’s close proximity to the planet affects its temperature and strips away its atmosphere

As of 2016, the Wide Angle Search for Planets (WASP) has discovered 118 extrasolar planets. The WASP project has been taking wide field images since 2004. 

Some WASP planets include:

• WASP-12b A hot Jupiter that orbits the Sun-like star WASP-12A. WASP-12b is about 80% larger than Jupiter and has a year that’s just over one Earth day. 
• WASP-96b A planet discovered in 2013 that orbits the G8-type star WASP-96, which is located about 1140 light-years from Earth. 
• WASP-7 The brightest known transiting planet in the southern hemisphere at the time of its discovery. 

Here are some other planets in the WASP system:

• WASP-107b A gas giant exoplanet that’s the size of Jupiter but less dense. It’s located 200 light-years away in the Virgo constellation. WASP-107b has a water cycle similar to Earth’s, but it rains sand instead of water. 
• WASP-96b A hot gas giant exoplanet that orbits a Sun-like star in the constellation Phoenix. It’s located about 1,150 light-years away and orbits its star every 3.4 days. WASP-96b has a sodium-rich atmosphere and is about half the mass of Jupiter. 
• WASP-12b A hot Jupiter that orbits the Sun-like star WASP-12A. It’s located about 1,400 light-years away and has a radius almost twice that of Jupiter. 
• WASP-121b A gas giant exoplanet that orbits an F-type star. It has a mass of 1.157 Jupiters and takes 1.3 days to complete one orbit of its star. 
• WASP-34b A planet that’s 1.22 times the radius of Jupiter.

WASP stands for Wide Angle Search for Planets. It’s a collaboration of academic organizations that use transit photometry to search for exoplanets. 

WASP is the most successful ground-based search for transiting exoplanets, having found over 150 planets. The project uses two instruments, one in La Palma and the other in South Africa, to monitor the night sky and build light curves of millions of objects

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