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News|Space


ASTRONOMERS WITNESS STAR EAT ITS OWN PLANET. EARTH MAY SHARE SAME FATE.


IN FIVE BILLION YEARS, THE SUN WILL LIKELY DEVOUR EARTH AS IT RUNS OUT OF FUEL
AND BALLOONS OUTWARD. 

By Ariana GarciaMay 7, 2023




This artist’s impression shows a doomed planet skimming the surface of its star.
The same could befall Earth. 

K. Miller/R. Hurt (Caltech/IPAC)

For the first time ever, a group of scientists caught a sun-like star devouring
a planet. Unfortunately, the discovery may also foreshadow Earth's fate in about
five billion years. In a study published Wednesday in Nature, a team at MIT,
Harvard University, Caltech and multiple other institutions detailed that over
the course of 10 days in May 2020, they observed a Jupiter-sized planet spiral
closely to a dying star that was 1,000 times its size until it was finally
engulfed in the star's core. 

What you need to be on the lookout for as baby snakes
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The scientists said the star continued to expand and grew 100 times brighter in
just 10 days before quickly fading away and returning to its normal state once
the meal was over. The planetary demise took place in our galaxy, some 12,000
light-years away near the eagle-like constellation Aquila. "We were seeing the
end-stage of the swallowing," said Kishalay De, the study's lead author and
postdoctoral student at MIT, in a news release.

It's a sobering reality of what many astronomers believe will also likely befall
Earth in the far off future when our own Sun runs out of fuel, balloons and
consumes any matter—including the solar system's inner planets—in its wake.
Luckily, humans likely won't be around for the event. "We are seeing the future
of Earth," De said. "If some other civilization was observing us from 10,00
light-years away while the sun was engulfing the Earth, they would see the sun
suddenly brighten as it ejects some material, then form dust around it, before
settling back to what it was." 

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The team reportedly stumbled upon the discovery by accident. De was looking at
data from the Zwicky Transient Facility at Caltech's Palomar Observatory for
signs of eruptions of binary star systems, in which two stars orbit one another,
with one periodically brightening as it pulls mass from the other. "One night, I
noticed a star that brightened by a factor of 100 over the course of a week, out
of nowhere," De said. "It was unlike any stellar outburst I had seen in my
life." 



The rendering shows the gas giant meeting its demise as it spiraled into its
parent star. Ultimately, the planet plunged into the core of the star, which
triggered the star to expand and brighten. 

K. Miller/R. Hurt (Caltech/IPAC)

Additionally, De noticed that the source produced molecules that only exist at
cold temperatures, meaning it was not likely to be a binary system. "Low
temperatures and brightening stars do not go together," De said. With additional
observations taken with an infrared camera at the Palomar Observatory, the team
was able to confirm the presence of cold material that appeared to spill out
from the source over the next year.

Following further measurements taken by NASA's infrared space telescope NEOWISE,
the team realized the source of the cool outburst after learning that the total
energy released by the star since it brightened was only 1/1,000th the magnitude
of any previously observed stellar mergers. "That means that whatever merged
with the star has to be 1,000 time smaller than any other star we've seen," De
said. "That's when we realized: This was a planet, crashing into its star." 

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The scientists concluded that the initial outburst—the bright, hot flash—was
likely the final moments of the planet being pulled into the dying star's
expanded atmosphere. As the planet was drawn into the star's core, the outer
layers of the star blasted away, settling out as a cold dust.

De said that for decades, scientists have only been able to see when planets are
still orbiting very close to their star and after when a planet has already been
engulfed and star is giant. "What we were missing was catching the star in the
act, where you have a planet undergoing this fate in real-time," he said.
"That's what make this discovery really exciting." 

More Space


Peak | Why the Sun likely won't be hitting solar maximum this year
Touchdown | NASA's first asteroid samples land on Earth
Prime | This Texas city has the best view of rare solar eclipse effects
Surf | NASA may have discovered a planet that smells like the beach

For the latest and best from Chron, sign up for our daily newsletter here.



 






May 7, 2023
By Ariana Garcia


Ariana Garcia joined Chron in 2021. Previously, she was a community news and
breaking news reporter for the Austin American-Statesman. She enjoys
binge-watching anime and films makeup tutorials in her spare time. 


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