Astronomers discover hot watery exoplanet destined to be swallowed by its star

Astronomers have discovered a new ocean world outside the solar system that orbits extremely close to its parent star.

This means that the extrasolar planet, or "exoplanet," is in hot water, both literally and figuratively.

The exoplanet orbits the star HD 176071 located around 335 light-years away, and is about two and a half times the size of Earth , but has about eight and a half times the mass of our planet.

That indicates to scientists that this planet is about 50% water.

At a distance from its star of just under 1.5 million miles (about 1.6% of the distance between the Earth and the sun ) and with a year lasting just 14 hours, HD 176071 b is a rare example of a "hot water world." That close distance to its star means the planet experiences extreme tidal forces due to the pull of the star's gravity.

These forces are driving the planet, designated HD 176071 b, towards a rapid and inexorable fatal encounter that will see it eventually violently devoured by its host star.

The exoplanet is also a rare occupant of what scientists call " Neptunian Desert " a term which describes a lack of Neptune sized worlds orbiting very close to their host stars.

This is thought to be because intense stellar radiation strips planets of their gaseous layers effectively shrinking them.

However, HD 176071 b seems to defy this suggestion, as this water world possesses surprisingly a dynamic atmosphere that hasn't been stripped away.

"Comparing historical data from the Kepler space telescope with new TESS (Transisting Exoplante Survey Satellite) observations six years later, we noticed an unexpected phase shift in the modulation of the reflected light," lead researcher Sylvain N.

Breton of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) said in a statement.

"This tells us that we are not looking at a static photograph, but a living and changing atmosphere, in which dense, highly reflective clouds form, evolve, and move along the planet's coldest edges." That isn't the only extraordinary thing about HD 176071 b.

The way the ocean exoplanet was initially discovered is pretty special too.

This ocean world doesn't cross its stellar parent Currently NASA's catalog of confirmed exoplanets has over 6,000 entries with thousands more worlds beyond the solar system awaiting conformation.