In The Hunt For Extrasolar Planets, A New Find Is Shattering Records Left And Right.

A planet called WASP-12b is the hottest planet ever discovered (about 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2,200 degrees Celsius), and orbits its star faster and closer in than any other known world

This sizzling monster whips its way around its parent star about once a day (for comparison, the fastest-circling planet in the solar system, Mercury, orbits the sun once every 88 days).

To make such swift progress, the planet circles extremely close-in to its star — about 2 percent of the distance from the Earth to the sun, in fact, or 2 million miles (3.4 million kilometers).