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PIA24580: Exoplanet XO-3b Illustration
Planet XO-3b has an internal source of heat which is caused by the squeezing of the planet's interior by the gravity of its parent star.
 Mission:  Spitzer Space Telescope 
 Instrument:  Spitzer Space Telescope 
 Product Size:  1600 x 900 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  JPL 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA24580.tif (1.902 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA24580.jpg (102.6 kB)  

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

click here for Figure 1 for PIA24580
Figure 1

Planet XO-3b has an internal source of heat, possibly from tidal heating, which is caused by the squeezing of the planet's interior by the gravity of its parent star. This could be increased by the planet's slightly elliptical orbit (shown on the right), meaning it's more oval-shaped than circular.

The entire body of scientific data collected by Spitzer during its lifetime is available to the public via the Spitzer data archive, housed at the Infrared Science Archive at IPAC at Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL, a division of Caltech, managed Spitzer mission operations for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Science operations were conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at IPAC at Caltech. Spacecraft operations were based at Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, also in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech

Image Addition Date:
2022-01-13