Astronomers are getting better and better at determining the characteristics of exoplanets - planets that exist outside our solar system.
For the first time in history the daily spin of an exoplanet has been determined and it is a doozy - 100,000 km/hr at the equator compared to Earth's rotation rate of 1,700 km/hr. That makes the length of day for Beta Pictoris-b 8 hours compared to our 24.
ESO
Beta Pictoris-b is 16 times larger and 3,000 times more massive than Earth and is located 63 light years away. It was one of the first exoplanets directly imaged and was discovered about 6 years ago.
It is quite likely that more exoplanet spin rates will be determined as time goes on. Pretty amazing…..
Sky Guy in VA
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