At its equator, the planet rotates at 25 kilometers per second (15.5 miles per second)

May 1, 2014 07:44 GMT  ·  By

Astronomers are happy to announce that, with the help of the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, they have managed to pin down the rotation of a planet outside the Solar System for the first time ever.

As detailed on the official website for the Observatory, the planet in question is a gaseous one, and it orbits a star known as β Pictoris, which sits at a distance of 63 light-years from Earth. In order to detect its rotation, scientists had to analyze the way its atmosphere filters light.

“We have measured the wavelengths of radiation emitted by the planet to a precision of one part in a hundred thousand, which makes the measurements sensitive to the Doppler effects that can reveal the velocity of emitting objects,” explains specialist Ignas Snellen.

Furthermore, “Using this technique we find that different parts of the planet’s surface are moving towards or away from us at different speeds, which can only mean that the planet is rotating around its axis“.

It was thus determined that a day on this exoplanet, which the scientific community has named β Pictoris b, lasts about 8 hours. Otherwise put, this planet might just be the perfect place to go if one is looking to have their workweek last way less than it does on Earth.

Scientists who have studied β Pictoris b say that, at its equator, the planet rotates at a speed of about 25 kilometers per second (approximately 15.5 miles per second), or nearly 100,000 kilometres per hour (roughly 62,137 miles per hour).

They further detail that this means that it rotates some 50 times faster than our home planet, and faster than any other planet in the Solar System. Interestingly enough, this is despite the fact that its diameter is over 16 times greater than Earth's, and it weighs 3,000 times more than our planet.

“It is not known why some planets spin fast and others more slowly, but this first measurement of an exoplanet’s rotation shows that the trend seen in the Solar System, where the more massive planets spin faster, also holds true for exoplanets. This must be some universal consequence of the way planets form,” researcher Remco de Kok says.

When compared to Earth, whose age is estimated to be about 4.5 billion years, β Pictoris b is a fairly young planet. Thus, astronomers say that, according to evidence at hand, it has only been around for about 20 million years.

It is expected that, in time, the exoplanet will begin to cool and shrink, and that this will make it rotate even faster. However, should other processes intervene, it is possible that β Pictoris b will experience further changes in its spin.