Star Rips Exoplanet To Shreds With X-Rays

astroengine writes "Some relationships are doomed from the beginning, and the same can be said of some planetary systems. In the case of the star CoRoT-2a, some 880 light-years from Earth, it is quite literally ripping its orbiting exoplanet to shreds. Five million tons of material per second is being stripped from the closely orbiting world CoRoT-2b by powerful stellar X-rays. But it's OK, the destructive nature of this planetary system is mutual; CoRoT-2b's orbit is likely maintaining the high spin rate of the star, boosting magnetic activity, thus boosting the X-ray output."

Re:37 millon years

[Ruke]

COROT-2b is much, much larger than earth. It has a mass of approximately 3.31 times that of Jupiter, which itself is 317.83 times that of earth. (COROT-2b [wikipedia.org]) Your estimate is off by about three orders of magnitude, assuming a constant rate of decay.

Some math

[Anonymous Coward]

At 3.3 times the mass of jupiter, it's mass is about 6.2 * 10^27kg.

5 million tons = 5*10^9kg.

(6.2 * (10^27)) / (5 * (10^9)) = 1.24*10^18. It'll take that many seconds for the start to completely evaporate, assuming mass loss continues to be linear.

That's about 39 billion years, 2.8 times greater than the age of the universe.

The star (together with the planet) will die of something else long before the planet dies of this "ripping to shreds".