tau Bootis and Planet

From Tom's Astronomy Blog:

Above is an artists rendition (credit David Aguilar, CfA) of the giant exo-planet shown very close to its parent star tau Bootis, A fanciful depiction it seems, making the planet look as though its almost in the magnetosphere of the star.

Hey wait a minute it IS in the magnetosphere of its sun! Astronomers using the “ESPaDOnS” spectropolarimeter (heh, had to add that one to the old dictionary) on the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope have for the first time detected the magnetic field of tau Bootis, a F (F6 or F7?) star about 1.3 to 1.5 the mass of, and a little warmer than our sun. The planet about 4.4 Jupiter masses is orbiting rather close to the star at about 0.049 AU or something like 4.6 million miles.

The astronomers have also measured differential rotation of the star! That’s when the star rotates at different speeds at the poles than it does at the equator, tau Bootis rotates 18% faster at the equator than at the poles. It’s incredible they were able to measure that, I can hardly believe it.

Rather than ramble on (I get carried away), I’m going to go figure out what the Roche Limit is for this pair, it has to be close, and if you want you can read the press release.

Sometimes I forget how much I used to enjoy astronomy. I can get lost thinking about the magnitude of the universe and how small we are in it. The heavens are breathtakingly beautiful and harken to existence of something much larger than ourselves.

I took several of Dr. Broderick's astronomy classes as an undergrad and enjoyed them immensely! I can't wait until GMU finishes their observatory on campus. The facility is now completed, they just need to buy the telescope to put inside. It just happens to be next door to the econ building.