According to a new study conducted by the astrophysicists at UK's Keele University, a newfound planet - WASP-18b - is tenfold bigger than Jupiter, and is so close to its sun that it completes one full orbit around it in one Earth day.

Pointing to an obviously paradoxical situation, the research, which has been published in the journal Nature, says that going by the current theories of interaction between planets and their stars, the extreme closeness of WASP-18b to its star should actually burn it up, and the planet should practically be non-existent!

WASP-1, also called the "Hot Jupiter" is nearly 330 light years away from the Earth; and scientists opine that among the nearly 370 exoplanets - planets that orbit stars other than the sun - discovered thus far, this is only the second exoplanet with a disquietingly close orbit.

In the opinion of Coel Hellier, an astrophysicist at Keele University, with its rather short time scale, the WASP-18b should "spiral inwards' so much so that the likelihood of seeing it should virtually be near-negligible.

Meanwhile, Douglas P. Hamilton - a University of Maryland astronomer, who wrote a commentary accompanying the report - said that the existence of WASP-18b clearly defies all scientific explanation pertaining to the composition and characteristics of sun-like stars.

In his commentary, Hamilton wrote: "Perhaps we really are missing some key bit of physics!"