The European Space Agency’s CHEOPS (Characterizing Exoplanet Satellite) was launched back in December and it officially began science observations this past April. It wasn’t designed specifically for locating alien exoplanets, but it did manage to find WASP-189b. This bizarre planet is classified superhot, so much so that it gives off a blue glow, while orbiting its star in just 2.7 Earth days.
The planet’s temperature is approximately 5,800° Fahrenheit and about 1.6-times the radius of Jupiter. It also doesn’t orbit around its star’s equator, but rather at a dramatic tilt, which gravitates it towards the poles.
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Only a handful of planets are known to exist around stars this hot, and this system is by far the brightest. WASP-189b is also the brightest hot Jupiter that we can observe as it passes in front of or behind its star, making the whole system really intriguing,” said Monika Lendl, an astrophysicist at the University of Geneva in Switzerland.
