Aero-News: Quote of the Day

ANN's Quote of the Day usually derives from current news, though we reserve the right to pick quotes out of history that have a bearing on the day's events and issues.

Sometimes, you'll find them timely and in keeping with the content of the day's news... and sometimes, they'll just be thought-provoking.

Reader suggestions and comments are welcome... and if particularly intriguing, timely, or poignant, may themselves become future Quotes of the Day.

Let us hear from you, folks!

Aero-News Quote of the Day

"I think this is the first case where this is so dramatic in terms of planetary evolution. It's one of the most extreme examples of a planet undergoing a major mass-loss over its lifetime. This sizable mass loss has major consequences for its evolution, and it impacts our understanding of the origin and fate of the population of exoplanets close to their stars."

Source: Lead researcher Vincent Bourrier of the University of Geneva in Sauverny, Switzerland, commenting on the phenomena whereby astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope found that one of the warmest known Neptunes (GJ 436b) (described as hot Jupiter-sized planets and hot super-Earth-type planets no more than 1.5 times Earth's diameter) is losing its atmosphere. The planet isn't expected to evaporate away, but hotter Neptunes might not have been so lucky. Now, astronomers have used Hubble to nab a second "very warm" Neptune (GJ 3470b) that is losing its atmosphere at a rate 100 times faster than that of GJ 436b. Both planets reside about 3.7 million miles from their star. That's one-tenth the distance between our solar system's innermost planet, Mercury, and the Sun.

FMI: www.nasa.gov