International team of astronomers found an alien world named HATS-18b. It is a giant hot Jupiter exoplanet tidally spinning up its parent star. The team led by Kaloyan Penev of Princeton University carried out the observation campaign between April 2011 and July 2013. The new findings were published online on 2 June 2016 on arXiv.org.

Astronomers using the Hungarian-made Automated Telescope Network-South Exoplanet Survey spotted the big, gassy world around a star dubbed HATS-18b, which is almost identical in size and temperature to our sun. It’s so close to the star that it whizzes round its orbit in less than a day.

Planets like this one, nicknamed hot Jupiters because of their size and proximity to their stars, are the easiest exoplanets to find from Earth. But they are comparatively rare, and researchers cannot explain how they form, saysKaloyan Penev of Princeton University in New Jersey, who led the discovery.

The HATS-18 system will allow astronomers to study in more detail whether these planets originate far away from their stars and are drawn in by their gravity, or whether they form close to the stars.

The orbital period of HATS-18b equals 0.84 days which accounts to be very short. It was also found that the Planet HATS-18b with high mass and short orbital period implies the strong tidal coupling between the planetary orbit and the star which shows evidence of significant tidal spin up.