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. 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).

"WASP-12b is incredibly interesting, because we're at a stage in the study of exoplanets where we're finding new examples all the time," said Don Pollacco of Queen's University in Northern Ireland, who is a project scientist for the SuperWASP (Super Wide Angle Search for Planets) project that discovered WASp-12b.

"It was exciting because it was the shortest period and the hottest planet, but I suspect there are even shorter period planets, and hotter planets to come." WASP-12b is a gaseous planet, about 1.5 times the mass of Jupiter, and almost twice the size.

The planet, which orbits a star 870 light years from Earth, is especially notable because it pushes the bounds of how close planets can ever come to their stars without being destroyed.

"There is a limit because as a planet gets closer to its star, the radiation field gets more and more intense, and at some point that whole planet will be evaporated by its star," Pollacco told SPACE.com. "Before, some people thought it was impossible to find planets that had 1-day periods. I think it's so early in the whole subject, and it takes a number of objects before you can start setting limits."

The planet is also so hot that its temperature matches that of some stars. This planet, however, is definitely not a star because its mass isn't nearly large enough for the internal thermonuclear reactions that define stars.

WASP-12b is one of only about 50 extrasolar planets that have been detected through the transit method, meaning they were found by measuring the dip in brightness of their parent star as they pass in front of it and block part of its light.

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