#wasp 12b

[nasa-real]

HI NASA I

I THINK WE SHOULD LOOK INTO WASP-12B

BECAUSE I THINK WASP-12B IS VERY COOL AND NEAT AND UH. ITS AWESOME. NOT VERY AWESOME FOR THE PLANET BUT THE FACT IT CAN BE SO CLOSE AND NOT GET SLURPED UP INTO OBLIVION. ITS REALLY COOL AND I LOVE WASP-12B WITH MY ENTIRE BEING. IT IS EGG SHAPED.

you wouldn't belive it.....

It would blow your mind actually.....

[wraith-the-rock]

Space is a tragedy, and no one writes it as such

I'm gonna put a break so no one gets suddenly blasted with the horrors, you have been warned

Space is so interesting, but also deeply sad if you think about it. When we look into the sky, we don't see the present, we see the distant past. In other words, we look up at a graveyard. All the stars we see, all the planets that we know are out there, could be gone by now. There aren't all that many new stars being made.

And some planets are just a constant apocalypse. Wasp 12b is being ripped apart by it's star, Mars once had oceans, it could have had life hypothetically. Our universe is so vast and full of potential and possibilities, we don't need to come up with new fantastical worlds. We just have to look to the skies, and find inspiration.

Take Wasp 12b, imagine if it was hospitable. Imagine if there were people. Imagine how desperate they got to escape.

Days start passing faster and faster until you go to sleep and wake up next year. The sun grows bigger and bigger until it takes up the whole sky. Nights are a sweet relief from the oppressive heat, so the people become nocturnal. The plants can't survive so they begin to wither, so life goes underground.

People want to flee, of course people want to flee. Their world is on fire and if they can't get away, get anywhere else, they'll burn with every trace they existed in the first place. It keeps getting hotter and more and more of the sky is fulled with the star dead set on destruction. The very thing that gave them light and warmth and life is going to be the thing that destroys it.

The people want to give up, but they never do. Maybe they escape, maybe they don't, but that story would be so damn compelling. I would happily read it, or write it if necessary.

The possibilities are literally endless. We discover so many new planets galaxies every day, imagine the stories we could tell if we loosened our grip on something being science fiction and focus on the science. Imagine the stories we could tell about these places we'll never touch.

[arcsin27]

No one else will find this funny but I must share it anyways

[talesofdrunkennessandcruelty]

This scorching black exoplanet takes in all the light it can and gives almost nothing back

[mappingthemoon]

Artist's conception of WASP-12 & WASP-12b by NASA (Public Domain)

Man... I looked this up after posting “The Signs as Strange Planets” and I am just feeling this Aries planet real hard rn:

Like a moth in a candle flame, a doomed Jupiter-sized planet has moved so close to its sunlike parent star that it is spilling its atmosphere onto the star. This happens because the planet gets so hot that its atmosphere puffs up to the point where the star's gravity pulls it in. The planet will likely be completely devoured in 10 million years.

--NASA News Release Number: STScI-2010-15, May 20, 2010