SAEDNEWS: The exoplanet WASP-69 b is one of the most astonishing phenomena in the cosmos, located 163 light-years from Earth. This planet is especially famous for its comet-like tail—a massive feature stretching 44 times the diameter of our planet.
According to the Science Service of SaedNews, a distant world near our solar system sports a colossal tail trailing behind it. As it orbits close to its parent star, the tail stretches to a length equivalent to 40 Earths. This enormous structure, formed from gas escaping the planet’s atmosphere, is blown outward like a giant windsock by stellar winds.
The planet, named WASP-69b, is a gas giant roughly the size of Jupiter but with about one-third of Jupiter’s mass. It orbits a main-sequence star located 160 light-years from Earth. The planet’s orbit is extremely close to its star, completing a full revolution in just 3.9 Earth days. Since WASP-69b’s discovery in 2014, researchers have observed it losing 200,000 tons of gas per second, primarily helium with some hydrogen. Over its estimated 7-billion-year lifespan, this exoplanet may have lost the equivalent mass of seven Earths.
Dakota Tyler, lead author of the study and a PhD student in astrophysics at UCLA, stated at the time: “Previous observations suggested that WASP-69b either had a moderate tail or none at all. However, we can now definitively show that this helium tail extends at least seven times the planet’s radius.”
The tail forms as stellar winds blow the escaping gases away from the exoplanet, creating the visible stream. Stellar winds—similar to the solar wind—are continuous flows of charged particles emitted by a star. If the stellar wind were to vanish, the planet’s tail would disappear as well. Tyler explained: “If the stellar wind decreases, you can imagine the planet still losing part of its atmosphere, but this leakage would not form a tail. Without stellar winds, the escaping gas assumes a spherical, symmetrical shape. Increasing the stellar wind stretches the atmosphere into a tail.”
