Hot Jupiter Blows Its Top

The Supersized Science podcast features research and discoveries nationwide enabled by advanced computing technology and expertise at the Texas Advanced Computing Center of the University of Texas at Austin. TACC science writer Jorge Salazar hosts the podcast. A planet about 950 light years from Earth could be the Looney Tunes’ Yosemite Sam equivalent of planets, blowing its atmospheric ‘top’ in spectacular fashion. The planet called HAT-P-32b is losing so much of its atmospheric helium that the trailing gas tails are among the largest structures yet known of an exoplanet, a planet outside our solar system, according to observations by astronomers. Three-dimensional simulations on the Stampede2 supercomputer of the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) helped model the flow of the planet’s atmosphere, based on data from the Hobby-Eberly Telescope of The University of Texas at Austin's McDonald Observatory. The scientists hope to widen their planet-observing net and survey 20 additional star systems to find more planets losing their atmosphere and learn about their evolution. On the podcast to talk more about his research and study on HAT-P-32b is Zhoujian Zhang, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of California Santa Cruz. Music Credit: Raro Bueno, Chuzausen freemusicarchive.org/music/Chuzausen/ Story link: tacc.utexas.edu/news/latest-news/…er-blows-its-top/