Pitch Black Exoplanet: Hot Jupiter WASP-12b Reflects No Light

Short form: the “hot Jupiter” (so called because it’s a Jupiter-like gas giant really close to its star) turns out to have an albedo of 0.064, darker than new asphalt.

Here’s the thing, though: WASP-12b is so close to its start that its orbital period is 26.2 *hours,* and its surface temperature is 2600 degrees Celcius. At those temperatures, it would be incandescent, glowing sorta orangish:

So it might absorb virtually all the light that falls on it from its star, but it re-radiates that energy back out into space largely in the visible spectrum. It would not look “black” anymore than the filament in a lit lightblub looks black. Additionally, it’s so close to the parent star that it is physically distorted into an egg-shape. No doubt if you were close enough to see the planet clearly, the pointy-end, closest tot he star, would likely be *really* hot, glowing intensely; the night side would look like a slightly dim star.

The link provides an illustration for the article that seems of dubious value in illustrating the situation: