A star about 1,360 light-years away from Earth, named FU Orionis, is twice as hot as astronomers previously suspected, according to recent data from the Hubble Space Telescope. In fact, scientists believe that the region where FU Orionis's planet-forming disk touches the star's surface glows at around 16,000 Kelvin — three times hotter than the surface of our sun.
Caltech astronomer Adolfo Carvalho and his colleagues suggest the area around the star is so surprisingly hot because a rapidly-spinning disk of material falling into the star is actually scraping against its surface, creating a shockwave that glows a hundred times brighter than the star itself. And that could create a rough environment for Earth-like planets; the star's interaction with the disk of material around it is just too explosive for a planet like Earth — or Mars, for that matter — to form.
