APOD: 2004 June 26 - Neptune: Still Springtime After All These Years
Neptune: Still Springtime After All These Years (Jun 26 2004) Credit: L. Sromovsky and P. Fry (Univ. Wisconsin - Madison) et al., NASA In the 1960s spring came to the southern hemisphere of Neptune, the Solar System's outermost gas giant planet. Of course, since Neptune orbits the Sun once every 165 earth-years, it's still springtime for southern Neptune, where each season lasts over four decades. Astronomers have found that in recent years Neptune has been getting brighter (...)
Hubble Sees Red Giant Blow a Bubble - NASA Science
Camelopardalis, or U Cam for short, is a star nearing the end of its life. As stars run low on fuel, they become unstable. Every few thousand years, U Cam coughs out a nearly spherical shell of gas as a layer of helium around its core begins to fuse. The gas ejected in the star's latest eruption is clearly visible in this picture as a faint bubble of gas surrounding the star.
Earthlike planets unlikely around stars with 'hot Jupiters'
Hot Jupiter Planet Type -- It has been proposed that, even though no planet of this type has been found until now, gas giants orbiting red giants at distances similar to that of Jupiter could be hot Jupiters too due to the intense irradiation they would receive from their stars. It is very likely that in the Solar System Jupiter will become a hot Jupiter when the Sun becomes a red giant.