Hot Jupiter

exoplanet · space discovery · gas giant

Impossibly close orbits. Hot Jupiters zoom around their stars much faster than Jupiter orbits the Sun. Some complete an orbit in just a few days, while Jupiter takes 12 years.

Extremely hot surfaces. These planets are baked by intense heat from being so near their stars. Temperatures in their atmospheres can reach thousands of degrees, way hotter than any planet in our solar system.

Giants like Jupiter. Hot Jupiters are massive gas giants similar in size and composition to Jupiter, made mostly of hydrogen and helium. Scientists were shocked to find such huge planets so close to their stars.

Discovery game changer. Hot Jupiters were among the first exoplanets ever discovered in the 1990s. Finding them changed everything we thought we knew about how planetary systems form.

Mysterious migration. Scientists think Hot Jupiters may have formed farther away and then spiraled inward over time. This discovery showed us that planets can move around way more than we imagined.